After 91 of 154 riders finished a Tour de France warm-up race, will the risk of crashing reduce racing calendars further still?
The biggest bike race in the world is coming, and everyone wants to be at their peak
154 riders started last week’s renamed Critérium du Dauphiné, the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, each of them desperate to fine-tune their form ahead of the Tour de France, which is now weeks away. Just 91 riders finished, with 40% dropping out mid-race, or failing to finish the final stage. Last year, 128 riders finished. This year’s finish rate of the key Tour de France warm-up race is the lowest since 2005.
Not all the riders who left the race did so because of serious illness and injury. The Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes finished with three brutal back-to-back-to-back mountain stages, and perhaps the parcours just didn’t fit in with a rider’s training plan. There were precautionary abandons, too, the odd slightly sore throat perhaps making a rider think twice about signing on in the morning. The Tour de France is the biggest goal, after all.
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However, there were high-profile incidents, and riders involved in crashes throughout the week, with some notable riders now sweating over their fitness or health ahead of the Tour. Among those are Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), a stage winner last week, who reportedly has had a setback on his recovery from an elbow injury sustained in a training crash pre-race. Josh Tarling (Netcompany-Ineos) crashed on stage six and broke his collarbone, requiring surgery; his teammate Oscar Onley crashed into a ravine the same day, and was able to finish, but with a dislocated shoulder. Teenage sensation Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) crashed on stage seven and was forced to abandon the next day.
The majority of these riders should be on the start line of La Grande Boucle in Barcelona next month, on Saturday 4 July, having recovered. But it’s impossible to say whether they will be in the same place physically had they not suffered these crashes. Other incidents may well occur at the five-stage Tour de Suisse, which begins tomorrow, the other final proving ground for those wanting to challenge at the Tour de France. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), the biggest name of all, will no doubt be hoping to get through the week unscathed.
The depleted finisher numbers raise the question of whether racing ahead of the season’s key goal is worth it for riders. The consensus appears to be shifting a little, with the highest profile players embarking on fewer race days before the biggest targets. This is undoubtedly a shame for fans, and is also a repudiation of what was believed to be true. Riders are taking time off from their day job – racing – to train for other races. Altitude camps are thought of as just as important as a preparation event.
Remco Evenepoel won’t have raced for 68 days by the time the Tour de France comes around, with the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider not pinning numbers on again after Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Clearly, his team think that this is a better preparation for the Tour than taking part in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes or Suisse, and the Belgian has done enough racing in the past to know how everything works, but one could still imagine some rustiness in the bunch come July.
Illness and injury don’t just come at races – Van Aert was bashed up in a training crash, while Tom Pidcock won’t start the Tour de Suisse due to a virus picked up away from racing, road racing anyway. To suppose that you’re better protected outside of the bunch might be a little true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story, or prepare you for the intensity of the Tour de France entirely.
Crashes and misfortune are part of cycling, and while I hope that the start list for the Tour de France is as unaffected by that as possible, I also hope that teams aren’t even more minded in the future to hold their big names back. Let them race.
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