June 28, (THEWILL) – The 2021 Tour de France is having a unforgettable year with the number of mishaps that have dogged the riders in a short space of time, especially when Monday’s incident is included to the two pile-ups that occurred on Stage 1, which considerably hurt the peloton as THEWILL reported.
In Monday’s Stage 3 part of the Tour, Geraint Thomas of the Ineos Grenadiers was involved in a nasty crash as his dreams of a second yellow jersey were thrown into serious doubt based on how he looked immediately after.
Not only did the Welshman take a tumble with 145km remaining on the run for riders on the Tour from Lorient to Pontivy but video slow motion captured him being run over by Robert Gesink of Team Jumbo-Visma. Gesink himself was in pain having tumbled over his handlebars as well.
As the cameras closed in on Thomas, sat on the tarmac and clutching his right arm, the rider looked to be in serious discomfort with support staff quickly on the scene trending to him for over a minute, while his GC rivals disappeared down the Tour track.
Gesink was forced to abandon the race.
It was not a comfortable sight taken from different angles in the replays that captured the moment Thomas went to the ground in his bicycle before Gesink ran over him with so little time in between to avoid the head-on impact.
By his side as he sat up on the tarmac, Thomas’ cycling glasses were broken by the impact either of his fall or when he was rolled over. The cameras caught him shaking his head as he held his right arm to his body, an unspoken confirmation that it may just not be the same for his Tour this year.
Although, after being attended to, Thomas eventually returned to his bike and gingerly propped himself back up to begin to catch up with the rest.
There were suggestions that he may possibly have dislocated his shoulder in the incident. Thomas succeeded in joining the main bunch of riders with 125km remaining.
With all that he endured, the 35-year-old was named joint-leader for Ineos at the Tour alongside Richard Carapaz. Carapaz was 31 seconds off leader Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) in the general classification after Stage 2, with Thomas a further 10 seconds later than Carapaz.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
