Back home in Auvergne on Monday, the day after a Liège-Bastogne-Liège which traumatized him, Romain Bardet returned for the Team on the collective fall which sent Julian Alaphilippe, victim of a pneumothorax, two broken ribs and a fractured shoulder blade.
The DSM runner (31 years old) did not hide his fear.
“Julian wrote to me on the night of Sunday to Monday, at two o'clock in the morning, he says.
It was the first thing he did.
I hope he will recover quickly.
When I left the race after rescuing him, I only wanted one thing: to know how he was doing.
I was afraid that he had an affected vertebra, paraplegia.
I really feared the worst.
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The images of the world champion immobilized in a ditch against a tree that he had just crashed into are still spinning in his mind.
“I see him unable to speak, to move, he can barely breathe, says Bardet.
Cars and motorcycles leave, I feel like I'm the only one seeing it and I'm screaming alone in the void and no one hears me.
I don't even know where my bike is.
I was hit from behind, I think I must have fallen but I can't remember.
I have four or five seconds missing.
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If he has already experienced many falls within the peloton, this one particularly marked him.
“She was violent, it's still difficult for me to talk about it, it was a scene of chaos, underlines the former AG2R rider.
We were over 70 km/h, the surface was not good.
I remember the noise of the helmets banging against the asphalt, then the cries of pain from all the guys on the ground… When it falls at this speed, with the discs cutting like razors, it's Russian roulette.
My fear is to one day take a crank in the throat.
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How to avoid this?
“It's at the level of individual behavior that things have to change, replies Bardet.
You have to know how to accept your placement in the race.
I say that, I'm not blameless either, huh.
But there is a limit to be found.
In the face of the stakes, sometimes, it's completely screwed up.
Guys take bigger and bigger risks and put others in danger.
Everything is so optimized, everything is pushed to the extreme, it always goes faster.
This trend worries me.
Farts like the one on Sunday, there will be some on all the major Tours.
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