Sam Bennett will start stage 2 of the Tour but his hand looks very beat up indeed, as the photo below shows.
Sam Bennett will be on the start line of stage 2 of the Tour de France today, saying he slept well last night and has decided he can begin the stage and see how he gets on.
The Irishman has been left with a badly injured hand and needed stitches after being brought down in the sprint finish crash at the end of the 188km stage 1 to Utah Beach.
The crash was caused when Michael Morkov of Katusha, who was leading out Alexander Kristoff, clipped the crowd control barriers at speed.
As well as hitting the deck hard and bringing Bennett with him, also among the fallers was Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) and Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas.
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Bennett said the barriers “came in sharp” into the road, meaning the riders needed to react and change direction and that some of them got caught out and crashed into them.
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His explanation echoes what others have said, with many highly critical of the way the barriers were placed so close to the finish and calling on the race organisers to review the placement of barriers generally in the finales of stages.
“A few guys got tangled together and then came down in front of me and I couldn’t react in time,” he said.
“I scrubbed as much speed off as I could, but I came down hard. Initially I thought I didn’t come down too hard but it hurt a bit.”
He said he slept “pretty OK”, adding he was very tired after the stage but needed some stitches, so he sounds like he has really been through the wars.
Have a listen to the fill interview with Bennett conducted and published by his team:
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