The opening weekend of the Tour de France is always a nervous affair with crashes, splits and mishaps around almost every corner. For Orica Scott the first two stages have not been without incident - Simon Yates put in a more than respectable time trial in Dusseldorf, while Esteban Chaves came through his first Tour de France stage without too many concerns.
However, Luke Durbridge has been forced out through injury and has been sent home for scans.
The Australian all-rounder crashed in the time trial on stage 1 and although he took to the start on Sunday, the injuries were too severe and he was forced to step off the bike during Sunday's stage to Liege. His departure leaves Orica with eight men and a huge hole in their line-up.
ADVERTISEMENT
"It's definitely a blow because he's a strong boy and he's very dynamic," Matt White told Cyclingnews.
"He cuts across a number of key groups. He's a key guy for the flat stages but he also climbs well on the medium mountain stages too. It's a blow, and we're one rider short but we've been in worse situations. Tonight we're staying in the same hotel where a couple of years ago we had to send three guys home and one guy had bust ribs. We take it with a grain of salt. We've lost a key guy but we've got a strong group and now they're going to have to step up in certain areas and fill the void."
Read more on this article
- Tour de France: Wet weather risks pay off for Yates
- Simon Yates: I want an aggressive Tour de France
- A long-awaited debut: Chaves gears up for the Tour de France - Podcast
- Tour de France: Stage 2 highlights - Video
- Kittel sprints to stage 2 victory
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2t7rs4w
No comments:
Post a Comment