Geraint Thomas taken to hospital

[rjb]

Geraint Thomas has crashed during the Tour de Suisse and been taken to hospital. More bad news for Ineos and there tour de france hopes. Watch this space. http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/geraint ... de-suisse/

[mjr]

Wait and see, but possibly Bernal as Tour team leader?

[Bonefishblues]

I'm told he was writing a get well card to Chris Froome at the time

[Spinners]

Precautionary by the sound of it. I think he'll be OK.

[Bonefishblues]

I expect so, he'll get himself the Le G Depart.

[1982john]

Are Ineos jinxed? They've had rotten luck since they took over - especially considering how little this happened under Sky

[Cyril Haearn]

This thread could be merged with 'team ski is now team enos'

[Spinners]

This thread could be merged with 'team ski is now team enos'

So, by that token, everything to do with Team Ineos should be moved. I don't think so.

GT taken to hospital is a perfectly valid stand-alone topic.

[pjclinch]

Are Ineos jinxed? They've had rotten luck since they took over - especially considering how little this happened under Sky

If they are it's taken spreading, with Tom D out of the Giro and Vos out of the WToB...

[TrevA]

Are Ineos jinxed? They've had rotten luck since they took over - especially considering how little this happened under Sky

Wiggins collar bone break in the 2011 Tour when riding for Sky?

Crashes happen in racing and Sky were perhaps lucky not to have more bad luck, or perhaps it was due to their tactic of riding on the front for hours on end - all the crashes were behind them.

[mjr]

Are Ineos jinxed? They've had rotten luck since they took over - especially considering how little this happened under Sky

Wiggins collar bone break in the 2011 Tour when riding for Sky?

Crashes happen in racing and Sky were perhaps lucky not to have more bad luck, or perhaps it was due to their tactic of riding on the front for hours on end - all the crashes were behind them.

Well, https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/g ... ar-AAD6FR1 has Thomas complaining that he hit an Astana rider who hit a road defect, so he wasn't on the front then!

TI's habit of riding on the front may have backfired this year: Puccio crashing in front of Dumoulin took Dumoulin out of the Giro after just 4 stages, making him likely to be the top challenger at the Tour if he recovers fully...

[1982john]

Are Ineos jinxed? They've had rotten luck since they took over - especially considering how little this happened under Sky

Wiggins collar bone break in the 2011 Tour when riding for Sky?

Crashes happen in racing and Sky were perhaps lucky not to have more bad luck, or perhaps it was due to their tactic of riding on the front for hours on end - all the crashes were behind them.

Just for clarity, I don't believe in superstition however they are getting some bad luck. At least with Wiggo is was actually during the race. At the moment they struggling to even get to the start line!

[Brucey]

FWIW very few pros go the full season without having a prang/close shave or two. Fortunately serious injuries are comparatively rare. I was reminded of this when I did an image search for "Froome accident" after his recent prang. There was no picture of the most recent crash but there were (literally) dozens of other ones, some of which I'd never seen before. Having very powerful brakes in the peloton is arguably highly counterproductive, for the same reasons as they don't bother with brakes on the track at all; it just causes worse pile-ups than ever.

You have to blame the race organisers as well; do they not reconnoitre the route? Aren't there notes on the race card? Can't there be marshals with whistles and flags where the road is in a bad state and its not been fixed prior to the race? FWIW in those parts of the race where the peloton is likely to be intact, in the Giro it always looks as if they have repaired the roads specially for the race. in Switzerland I've mostly found the roads to be pretty good but in the mountains it must be a never-ending battle. Anyway randomly bad roads with isolated holes in them don't improve the racing, and they certainly don't do much for some rider's careers....

Get well soon!

cheers

[mjr]

You have to blame the race organisers as well; do they not reconnoitre the route? Aren't there notes on the race card?

Probably and probably, but who's to say the riders or team directors are reading the race book/cards?

Can't there be marshals with whistles and flags where the road is in a bad state and its not been fixed prior to the race?

That's not as easy or as big a safety improvement as you might think. Most races use rolling road closures which means that the in-road marshals and road-closing police spend the whole race overtaking all the riders, so more things to flag on the course means more motorbikes needing to overtake the riders. From memory, the Tour of Britain uses 24-30 police motorcycles and just under 20 in-road marshals, plus a number of static marshals around sensitive areas like the sprints. They spend all day overtaking the riders repeatedly and it only takes one to get it wrong once and you have another Peter Sagan incident

FWIW in those parts of the race where the peloton is likely to be intact, in the Giro it always looks as if they have repaired the roads specially for the race.

Often but not always. Stage 8 this year was criticised for its bad road surface on a descent: http://www.ciclismointernacional.com/gi ... 8-preview/

[Postboxer]

Looking at the luck other grand tour contenders have, it's an achievement that Lance Armstrong finished 7 Tours de France in a row, maybe there was less pressure in the race due to the cheating, but it still only takes one little mistake. Chris Froome didn't last long in 2014 after a few crashes and is missing this year's injured, although he maybe isn't considered the most skilful rider. Thomas and Landa crashed out of the Giro etc etc. Not sure if Lance Armstrong was entering many other races, or doing as much training though.