A police investigation has been launched into the crash on stage 1 at the Tour de France today that was caused when a spectator stepped slightly into the road with a cardboard sign with 45km to go.
Christian Prudhomme, director of the Tour de France, revealed on Saturday that
ASO, the company that owns the race, had filed a complaint with the police
against the spectator.
Landerneau gendarmerie – the police force in the area where the crash occurred, after the Saint-Rivoal climb in Saint-Cadou- issued a statement confirming their inquiry had already begun. And it is appealing for people to identify the woman involved.
"A judicial inquiry is opened for unintentional injuries with incapacity not exceeding three months by manifestly willful violation of an obligation of safety or prudence," the gendarmerie said.
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“The bystander behind the accident left the scene before investigators arrived. She wore glasses and was dressed in blue jeans, a red and white striped sweater, a yellow jacket (waxed kind). She was holding a sign on which was written Allez OPI-OMI!”
The investigation is being carried out by the Landerneau gendarmerie research brigade, under the authority of the Brest public prosecutor.
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Race deputy director Pierre-Yves Thouault has also told the AFP news agency that
the race organisation now planned to sue the woman; though what she did was
accidental rather than anything more sinister.
"We are suing this woman who behaved so badly,” Thouault told AFP. "We are doing this so that the
tiny minority of people who do this don't spoil the show for everyone."
The woman who
caused the crash had one foot on the tarmac and her sign was protruding into
the road on a stretch of the course where the road was narrow and the other
spectators were standing back on the grass verge.
The female spectator
was also not looking at the riders at the time. Instead, she was facing forward
in the hope the camera moto just ahead of the race, and looking back at the
bunch, would pick her out at the roadside.
That meant the woman didn’t see the riders coming and didn’t realise the danger she was causing as she held the sign, apparently with a message for her grandparents.
Tony Martin
(Jumbo Visma) was on the front on the right side of the road and crashed into
the woman’s back, sending her spinning around.
Martin, the 10-time German TT champion, hit the deck hard. A very large number of riders also fell, some of them heavily and not everyone able to continue, with numerous broken bones sustained.
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