Irvine on the front closing down the stage 5 early breakaway – McCann far right
David McCann (RTS Racing) was a non starter in the Tour of Korea yesterday after he slashed his thumb so badly in a crash at the finish of Thursday’s stage that his bone was exposed.
His high speed spill occurred while he was third on GC and after Martyn Irvine and fellow RTS Racing rider Alex Coutts had driven the peloton hard to close down a breakaway in a bid to protect McCann’s overall position.
The Irish rider had to undergo surgery on the wound under general anesthetic, meaning his hopes of climbing higher on GC were over as he was forced out of the race.
McCann described a day of carnage on Thursday’s fifth stage, saying he narrowly avoided being hit twice by race motorbikes before finally being taken down by other riders in the sprint to the line.
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“A couple of guys decided to tango right in front of me in the sprint finish,” he said.
“One fell straight into my front wheel and I go tumbling at 43mph into a sea of bodies. I got up, surprised not to be worse than a lot of cuts and scrapes, to see my thumb dissected and the bone staring at me and a squirting of blood straight out of a samurai movie.”
He said the feet of the crash barriers at the side of the road had sharp metal corners that were exposed and he believed his hand may have caught one of them.
He had to have a saline solution pumped into the open wound before going under the knife to fix the problem. It was later found that the nerve in his thumb had not been cut as was first thought, and had only been “stretched”.
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However, he did sever an artery, which he feared may be problematic in the period ahead.
He said he counted himself lucky to have escaped with the injury that he sustained after having seen the yellow jersey - Korean rider Chan Jae Chang (Terengganu) - lying convulsing on the road after the crash.
He was disappointed at being forced out of the race saying he was near to the form of his life and especially after Coutts and Irvine had worked so hard to bring a 20-man group back earlier in the day.
Irvine continues in the race, which ends tomorrow. That’s a bitter blow for McCann. We’ll keep you posted about how he’s recovering and if this will in any way change his plans for an assault on the An Post Ras in just three weeks.
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