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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘Carnage’ mars first week of Tour de France

Rob Ruijgh, standing, tends to injured teammate Wouter Poels after a crash during Friday’s sixth stage. (Associated Press)
Greg Keller Associated Press

PORRENTRUY, Switzerland – It has always been a dangerous proposition to send nearly 200 aggressive cyclists hurtling down a road at high speed, their featherweight bicycles inches apart.

Do it in the Tour de France, cycling’s most prestigious event, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

And that’s what has happened in the 99th edition of the Tour. Seven days into the race, it is shaping up as the most dangerous in decades, with 20 riders pulling out of the three-week event following crashes.

Sunday morning only 180 of an original 198 riders took off from Belfort for the stage across the Jura mountains into Switzerland. Another two, including Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez, abandoned during the race.

The last time so many riders had abandoned this early in the race was 1998.

By far the worst day was Friday, the sixth stage from Epernay to Metz.

As the pack picked up speed to chase four breakaway riders with about 16 miles to go, at least two dozen spilled across the rural road. Many were downed and dazed. One rider said it looked like a trench hit by a grenade.

“Lots of blood and screaming. Carnage,” Rabobank rider Laurens Ten Dam said on Twitter.

The crash knocked Giro d’Italia champion Ryder Hesjedal out of the race with massive bruising on his hip and knee. Tom Danielson, his teammate on U.S. team Garmin-Sharp, was briefly knocked unconscious, and rushed to a hospital for hip, collarbone and elbow injuries.

Another rider whose Tour, and possibly career, ended that day was three-time world champion Oscar Freire of Spain. He was hospitalized with a punctured lung and broken ribs.

Sky manager Dave Brailsford says the first week in the Tour “is inherently risky.”

“It’s a question of staying upright,” Brailsford said.

Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme disputed the claim that there are more crashes than in the past.

“We have no memory, every year people say this,” Prudhomme said.

But he couldn’t remember a Tour that had as many abandons this early in the race.

Tour veteran Stuart O’Grady, who crashed out of the 2007 race with five broken ribs, had another view.

“There are a lot of young kids out there, and they don’t know how to ride their bikes,” the Australian told Cycle Sport magazine.

“There’s a lot of inexperience, a lot of desperation, a lot of nerves. I think everyone needs to chill,” O’Grady said.