TheManShow

Tour de France 2015 halted after crash involving Fabian Cancellara | Daily Mail Online

Siu Blue Wind

Moved from General to Pros

Damien09

Any one notice how fabin drafted behind his team car for way to long? But yet he doesnt get in trouble pretty sure thats aginst the rules to use a cars draft for to long. Its one thing to use it then jump to another one to move up and so on. But he just rode behind his forever. # big names never get in trouble tell years after they quit

dstrong 

With Fabian, I think the race had been stopped at that point and they were allowing anyone who could still ride to come forward however they could.

jyl

Right, the race was neutralized so no problem using the cars.

And the TdF commissaires are letting riders use the cars to rejoin the peloton after mechanicals, see Nibali yesterday (drafting the race commissaire!) and Gallopin today. They seem to be less hardline than the Giro commissaires.

The race was stopped because there were so many injured riders that all the medics and ambulances that follow the race were occupied, the race director didn't want risk having riders injured in the next accident laying by the side of the road with no medical personnel. Seems sensible, especially given all the calls for rider safety.

Giacomo 1 

I thought it was a sensible thing to do to, I'm just not sure they picked the right spot!

A small town, at the base of a climb on a narrow road? Really tough to get things going again from where they stopped. And a lot of the riders looked seriously PO'ed about the race being stopped. I thought there was going to be a revolt a few times. Glad cooler heads prevailed.

TheManShow

The message the images the UK Mail posted told the story of how serious some of the riders were injured.

jyl

Bonet fractured his neck. Cancellara his lumbar vertebrae. Gerrans his wrist. Impey his collarbone. Dumoulin his shoulder. A Katusha rider both his collarbone and scapula. Bunch of other injuries. Loss of severe road rash. They were going 80 km/hr and the falling riders smashed into a light pole and then the rest of the riders slammed into the mass of bikes and riders piled up on that light pole.

sgtdirt

this isn't a race, it's a joke. stopping a race so others can catch up? the leaders were clearly out of any "danger" and should have been allowed to continue.

it all boils down to money. those high priced sponsors NEED their teams to be on TV.

RJM

Na..I'm pretty sure they stopped the race because they had the one big crash then right after had another crash and the doctors couldn't get to the riders in the second crash because they were taken up dealing with the first crash victims. If the race was allowed to go on, they would have to go on without doctors.

It was a good call which really didn't make much of a difference anyway since the big contenders weren't involved in the crash (even though Cancellara was).

jyl

Don't be stupid on purpose. The race is required to have medical personnel, ambulances, medavac helicopter following the racers. With so many injuries, all medical resources were in use, which is really unusual (four ambulances follow the peloton). So if there had been another crash ten minutes later, those riders would have just lain there on the road, bleeding or broken, with no medical care. Which would have been a disaster, not just for those riders but for the race organizer. Stopping the race until the medical resources could be freed up and back on duty was very logical.

sgtdirt

then it was poor planning on the organizer. you have to expect crashes and they need to be able to cover them...on both ends.

EventServices

Interesting to see how quickly that crash spread.

Watching that makes me ask: can we kill the idea of adding disc brakes to road bikes?

They would have been no help in this situation.
They would add hot spinning sharp metal discs to the carnage.

sgtdirt

As the race organisers explained afterwards, it was not to give Cancellara the opportunity to rejoin the peloton but because the medical services were now spread across two crash sites and therefore unable to support the majority of riders who remained upright. As Team Sky’s Sir Dave Brailsford said: ‘Life is about taking a set of rules and applying them to a given circumstance. I am all for that kind of decision-making.’

huh? aren't rules suppose to define perimeters of a contest? if they are going to change the rules to fit the circumstances... while the race is in progress, why even have any? i guess it's a British way of competing.

also, why would they stop a race to give another rider special privilege? isn't this a race? if you crash, too bad. if you get a flat, too bad. that's all part of racing.

TheManShow

In a perfect race there would have been no crashes, injuries, or need for any emergency personal to be part of the people following the racer if anything unpredictable happened.

Sadly now event that took split seconds to happen, were unpredictable as to who went down, who got hurt, and how this tragic event should have been handled.

Now for years people who have all the time in the world can dice ect, discuss, and decide the what if that should have or they would have done different ifthey were in charge, or were race director.

Darth Lefty 

I'm back and forth between snark - is the ole OK? - and sympathy. Bonet's going to have a long and painful recovery. He's lucky he's not paralyzed and he might need skin grafts. Cancellara by comparison almost looks like a soccer or basketball player trying to mime a foul, but he's done for a while, too.

LMaster

What.

Crashes are a part of racing. Nobody argues that, because bike handling is an inherent skill of racing (you could make an argument against mechanicals in a perfect world, but thats for a different day)

However, if we acknowledge crashes as a part of racing, then we should also acknowledge the need for a level of safety. If you have a ridiculously severe crash with 6+ serious injuries, and even more slightly minor ones needing attention, there isn't medical staff to treat all riders. Unless you have a veritable army of ambulances and medical personnel ought there.

Which leaves you with two options

1) Say "**** it" if another crash happens that's tough luck for those riders and they don't get medical support, even if that means death as an unfortunate result of a bad crash.
2) You stop the race until such time as you have medical personnel available to treat riders if they are injured.

I don't know what argument you could possibly make in favor of #1 unless you literally can't be bothered about anyone's safety.

zonatandem

If you've ever crashed I'm sure you'd appreciate medical attention.
Been following the TdeF since the late 1930s (yes, am that OLD!).

gpsblake

It was the right move, as others have said, if there had been another crash, they would have had major problems without medical back up and the race director had to make a decision right away. I can also see why the riders in the front would be upset at that point, but hopefully looking back, they will also see it was the right decision.

Pemetic2006

Christian, as well as many others on this very thread, explained why the race was stopped for 18 minutes.
Sorry to see Fabian is out.

Siu Blue Wind

Five posts were deleted because people decided to start name calling. One actually told another not to post.

Come on... I believe you are all adults and capable of discussion correct? Please continue discussion in an adult manner. Thanks.

rumrunn6

sorry to hear about the injuries, but that crash didn't look as bad as others I've seen

gaucho777 

My first reaction was that it was a bad decision to neutralize the race. That crashing is part of racing and riders who don't stay the front of the peleton are putting themselves at more risk of crashing. But I've had a change of opinion because of the number of racers involved, the severity of the injuries, the fact that support vehicles and medical staff were caught behind the first crash. Further, because of the point (stage 2) in the overall race, the accidents had the potential to drastically change the competitive balance of the race. Prudhomme was in a position where he had to make a quick decision. If he waited until the climb, it would have been too late to neutralize. Sure there were some riders not involved int he crash who were upset, but I think he made the right decision to preserve the integrity of the overall race while the carnage was assessed.

gaucho777 

I also dispute the notion that it was a touch of wheels that caused the crash. There was a touch of wheels, but that was preceded by other initial contact. It's a bit of splitting hairs, I know, but that initial contact then caused the touch of wheels. I watched the crash several times in slow mention. The Quickstep rider who was the first to fall. Just before he goes down, he's sort of slowing down and drifting to the right as another rider passes him on the right. It appears there was some initial contact there as they are passing. It's hard to see, but I believe the passing riders arm, or more likely, his knee/leg touched the Quickstep rider's bars.

This brings me back to an old trick from my racing days. Not something I'd advocate for, but it does work. If you touch someone's bars, they tend to over-compensate. Say another rider is squeezing in too close or bumping into you on your left, you can bump back or give way. However, another option is to give a gentle tap on the inside of the other rider's brake lever toward you. Inevitably, the rider overcompensates for this by steering away from you.

I think that's sort of what happened in reverse. The Quickstep rider appeared to have some initial contact before the touch of wheels (say an inadvertent knee to the bars), and then over-compensated back into the rider on his right, at which point the touch of wheels happened.

I realize this a bit of semantics, but a touch of wheels usually says to me the rider was often not paying close enough attention. In this case, I'm not sure it's a complete and fair assessment of the cause of this particular crash.

sgtdirt

Austin Dillon in horrifying crash; five fans injured

mmm...they didn't stop this race.