I forgot earlier to put this in the stage recap, I don't know why. I must've still been groggy. One of Discovery Channel's riders, Manuel "Triki" Beltran crashed today on an uphill portion of the course (which is odd, most crashes happen when the riders are going at a faster pace), and was apparently unconscious for a bit. He eventually got back on his bike, but Discovery's Directeur Sportif Johan Bruyneel said that he "didn't even remember that he'd crashed" after a few minutes, so they pulled him out of the race. This is from Graham Watson on Lance's official Tour de France page, The Paceline:
"It is not often that this team has failed to finish with a full team in Paris, and I believe the only other time it happened was when Christian Vandervelde crashed out of the 2001 Tour de France with a broken collar-bone. Unfortunately cycling is not a sport where you can call up a reserve or two in such situations, and the team must now deal with the Pyrenees without one of their most cherished mountain-climbers."
This also from The Paceline:
"He was taken to the local hospital after the stage, but he is said to not have any serious injuries."
It will be interesting to see how the team copes with Triki's loss in the killer mountain stages coming up.
1 comment:
That's right, I remember that. And I'm sure Vaughters remembers it, too.
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