Major setback for Rolland and Europcar
💟Team boss Bernaudeau describes Metz🍸 stage as “an awful, awful day”
Despite the ongoing injury problems that have hampered 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Thomas Voeckler, Europcar have had a relatively good week. Until today, that is, when team leader 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Pierre Rolland was involved in the crash 24km out from the stage six finish in Metz. Last year’s best young rider not only lost more than two minutes on the day, but was ꦯalso taken to hospital for x-rays🌊 on his elbow and ribs.
“It’s been an awful, awful day,” lamented Europcar team manager Jean-René Bernaudeau. “Although we’ve been h🅘it heavily today, there’s 🌊been a lot of damage done elsewhere, so you have to put things into perspective.
Bernaudeau revealed that his riders had told him that the bunch was particu♛larly nervy today. Asked why that was, he replied: “Everyone wants to be very close to their leader and everyone wants to be in the same place and there isn’t room for everyone… That makes things very tense, which puts riders on their limits.”
Rolland had managed to stay out of trouble up to Friday and had been looking f𒈔orward to Saturday’s first medium mountain stage. “I’m not sure who was responsible but the bunch was goinܫg very quick and that made it bad. It was nervous all day and then, suddenly, the riders came together and ended up in a big pile.”
Rolland said he was about to head off to hospital to see whether he needs stitches in an elbow wound. He is also likely to have x-rays on the elbow and his ribs. “The damage to my ribs is not pleasant. We will see tomorrow how things are, but there’s no doubt this is a big blow for me and for the team.”
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Peter Cossins has written about professional cycling since 1993 and is a contributing editor to Procycling. He is the author of The Monuments: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races (Bloomsbury, March 2014) and has translated Christophe Bassons' autobiography, A Clean Break (Bloomsbury, July 2014).