It was a day of misery on the roads of coastal Brittany. What should have been nothing more than a stage in which to be careful turned into utter carnage among the peloton and the riders. Everything from clipped wheels to motorbikes and cars caused cyclists to go flying every which way and in one case, to the hospital.
It started off like every TdF stage - a breakaway, the peloton sitting back, planning to reel them in the appropriate time. There was a familiar name in the breakaway - Jose Ivan Gutierrez from Movistar was up the front again, getting some more prime time for his team's sponsor, along with three other riders.
And that was when the chaos began at the back of the peloton in the first crash of the day. A comparatively minor altercation, Quickstep's Sylvain Chavanel went down, along with Sky team leader Bradley Wiggins and his domestique Christian Knees. The only injury being pride, with 104 kilometres to go the unconcerned riders fixed their bikes and rode on to rejoin the peloton.
The chutes didn't stop there. The next crash was perhaps the most dramatic of the day - Janez Brajkovic (Radioshack) crashed on the side of the road, along with Rabobank's Robert Gesink, both of whom wear number one for their team. On the other side of the road Alberto Contador had also gone down. While Contador simply traded his bike for a new one and kept going with a couple of scrapes and bruises, Robert Gesink was bleeding from knees and elbows, and as soon as he'd caught up to the peloton he went to the white medical car to get patched up a bit and something to keep the pain at bay until he reached the finish. Brajkovic was in much worse shape. Unconscious on the road when the team doctor reached him, he was able to stand after a few minutes but was soon withdrawn from the Tour and loaded into an ambulance bound for hospital. He was later found to have a broken left collarbone as well as a nasty concussion.
The next in the long list of casualties was Tom Boonen (Quickstep), who went down in the back of the peloton with teammate Gert Steegmans. While Steegmans was back in his bike and off in seconds, Boonen was lying in the road for a while with doctors fussing over him. After five minutes of dizziness, Boonen was able to get back on his bike and back in the race, but having lost six minutes after his crash, the challenge was now to finish within the elimination time of 18 minutes. Coming in 13 minutes after the stage finish, Boonen was safe and straight off to hospital for a full damage report.
That wasn't even the last of the crashes. Danish champion from Team Saxobank-Sungard, Nicki Sorenson, was taken out by a press motorbike, which saw him thrown clear of the peloton into a group of suprised spectators, while his bike was dragged under the motorbike for another 400 metres. Thankfully unharmed from a soft landing, Sorenson was handed another bike and kept going.
The breakaway was caught at around 70 kilometres to go, a dangerous distance because of the likelihood of new breakaways. Statistics didn't diappoint, with frequent breakaway rider Jeremy Roy and former French national champion Thomas Voeckler jumping off the front at the 30-kilometre mark. But riders still weren't safe, with Euskaltel-Euskadi's Ivan Velasco crashing into a barrier and ending up in the gutter in the final 50 kilometres. Velasco is likely to withdraw from the Tour, having broken his right collarbone in the fall.
Voeckler and Roy's gutsy breakaway effort almost paid off, with an exhausted Roy pulled in a few kilometres from the finish. Voeckler played hard to get, and was only caught by the peloton with two kilometres to go. After that it was a finish for the sprinters, names like Thor Hushovd and J.J. Rojas present at the front with Mark Cavendish, who showed his trademark super-acceleration to win the stage. For such an unremarkable stage it certainly proved to be rather remarkable.
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