Dutchman Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) says “the GC is gone” after his crash and four-minute time loss in the Giro d’Italia‘s stage four to Frascati.
Dumoulin crashed with many others as the race’s longest stage, 235km, neared its end south of Rome. He climbed back on his bike with blood running down his left knee but the other race favourites were speeding ahead, including race leader Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma).
>>> Five talking points from stage four of the Giro d’Italia 2019
“Oh yeah, that seems obvious,” he said when asked if the whole Giro changes for him. “The GC is gone.”
Dumoulin finished 4-04 minutes behind race winner Richard Carapaz (Movistar) and 4-02 behind Roglič.
The 2017 Giro winner, the first Dutchman to win the Italian Grand Tour, reached the Sunweb team bus where team-mate Chad Haga arrived, who had also crashed on the stage. After 30 minutes, Dumoulin went to the X-Ray truck to have his knee checked.
“No fractures, that’s the latest,” he said. “That’s good but my knee’s already very swollen and I was not able to push any power on the pedals in the last few kilometres today.”
Tom Dumoulin among his Sunweb team-mates on stage four of the 2019 Giro d’Italia (LUK BENIES/AFP/Getty Images)
Though tomorrow’s road stage to Terracina is short, 140 kilometres, it will be difficult for Dumoulin. The race has yet to even reach its second of three time trials or the high Alpine passes.
He added: “I don’t know how I’ll be for tomorrow or whatever.”
Haga crashed with many Katusha riders in a incident at six kilometres remaining. Another one happened that involved Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) shortly after, around four kilometres to race.
“[Salvatore] Puccio from Ineos crashed, I think he touched a wheel or something and he took Izagirre and me with him,” Dumoulin added. “It was quite a bit in the front of the bunch I think and I couldn’t avoid it any more.”
“Tom seemed to be the guy who came off the worst, he hit his knee and it’s a shit situation,” said sports director, Marc Reef.
“The first one was already within the last 10 kilometres and the second one was six or seven kilometres to go, and that one he was in. I don’t know how many crashes there were.”
