Nicolas Roche was the first to react to team leader Alberto Contador's crash yesterday and was at his side trying to rescue his race until the pain became to much for the Spaniard (Photo: Stefano Sirotti)
Nicolas Roche has revealed that a hole in the road sent his team leader Alberto Contador flying off his bike and crashing to the road and out of the Tour de France yesterday.
Then Irish man was first on the scene in trying to get his team leader straightened out and back into the race he was hot favourite for.
However, though struggling on injured for a prolonged period, Contador was forced out in very similar circumstances to Team Sky’s Chris Froome on stage 5 last week.
Writing in his Tour diary in the Irish Independent today, Roche said Contador had one hand on the handlebars and the other in his pocket retrieving food when he hit a hole in the road on a straight stretch with the group doing around 70kph.
Advertisement
He was unable to control the bike and the front wheel went from under him, sending Contador head first and bouncing along the road onto a grass verge.
Roche was just behind and saw what had happened. He said the group was going so fast that while he slammed on the breaks immediately it took him around 50 metres to stop.
He said he ran back to Contador and as he did, saw the Spaniard’s bike was broken and blood everywhere from a gash just under his team leader’s right knee.
Contador was patched up several times and his continuing in the race for a period with what turned out to be a broken leg was pretty incredible.
“His wound looked pretty bad but as a rider, my natural instinct was to simply hand him my bike and encourage him to keep going,” Roche writes in his Irish Independent diary.
"’Take my bike Alberto! Go, go, go!’,” Roche said he shouted at Contador.
Related News
“‘Nico, I don't know if I can’, he said as he hobbled out onto the road.”
Roche shouted at him again: “Go and see. Try it, just jump on the bike!”
Contador got onto Roche’s bike as the Irish man waited by the road with the Spaniard’s machine; the race in pieces and groups and cars whizzing past him.
Eventually his own car with manager Bjarne Riis arrived, surprised to see him by the side of the road with no word having reached them on race radio of Contador’s fall.
Roche grabbed a new bike and chased on his own, but just 2km up the road, Contador was stopped again and was being attended to by the medical car. Roche waited for him along with team mates Michael Morkov and Daniele Bennati.
But as the minutes ticked by they all became concerned their leader’s races was over.
By that point, they were now last on the road; nine minutes behind the breakaway and four behind the bunch.
However, Contador decided he would continue and at first the men in yellow made good progress in the chase, even catching a large group containing two others from team; Michael Rogers and Rafal Majka.
However, 10km later Contador could not hold the wheels and with an aching body he was forced out, saying his goodbyes to the team mates who then had to ride flat out for the remaining 80km to make the time limit.
X-rays last night showed Contador had broken his right tibia.
Roche said he was confident the team would win the race with Contador and had been looking forward to riding into Paris at the side of the winner. While disappointed, he said the team would use today’s rest day to pull themselves together.
Topics
