After ten days of racing, there are 15 abandonments on the roads of the Tour. The Covid did damage…but so did the falls, especially on the formidable cobblestone stage on Wednesday. There are more today than twenty years ago and more spectacular. Explanations with the first witnesses of these falls, photographers and journalists in the heart of the peloton.
From our special correspondent in Albertville,
Étienne Garnier is inexhaustible in anecdote. His official profession: photographer for the newspaper The Team. Unofficial sound: fall spotter. He must always be as close as possible to the peloton without hindering the riders. ” Taking pictures on a motorcycle is noise, it’s the smell of the peloton… You can feel a fall coming when there is nervousness that comes in the peloton when it accelerates, when you are in the last kilometers “, he describes. ” This is where, for example, the train of sprinters comes into place and this is where the tension comes in. It’s no longer fun, it’s no longer discussed, and we also see the speedometer of the motorcycle start to panic. »
In the peloton, even at 70 km/h, the riders rub much more than before. The years pass and the tension has increased. ” Today, careers are set to last less and less. Runners are challenged to make more and more money over a shrinking time frame “, explains Pierre Carrey, journalist specializing in cycling. ” It means they don’t have the right to fail, they can’t have a day without. The tension is permanent. It is permanent on all stages of a Tour de France. The notion of a resting stage is disappearing. In the headset, their sports director intimates the order to go up all the time. But the problem is that not all runners can go up. »
► To read also: Tour de France: the falls, an imponderable of cycling
“Too Many Cowboys”
Race results: the 2022 Tour is no exception to the rule. Many falls where runners waltz like bowling pins. David Gaudu, the leader of Groupama-FDJ, paid the price between Dole and Lausanne last Saturday. ” A Tour de France without crashing is complicatedwarns the runner. I’m sure all runners will tell you that they’ve come across every Tour de France they’ve done at least once. If it’s our only slightly rotten day in the Tour – because there’s always one – I sign directly, we don’t waste time, there’s no harm… »
Some riders take too many risks, that’s what is said in the peloton. There would be ” too many cowboys “, ready to go to the carpet, even if it means embarking with them competitors or even team members. Change of era, Bernard Thévenet, double winner of the Tour in the 1970s, tries to explain these repetitive falls. ” It is true that there are more pitfalls than before. There are roundabouts, directional islands… Curiously, falls do not occur in these dangerous places. Is it maybe also because of the earbuds ? he asks himself.
And to add: With the headsets, the riders hear less, with the disc brakes it brakes better, but the riders don’t hear while the pad brakes squealed a little, we heard a little before when it started to brake, now we don’t hear more. “Apart from a fall from Thibaut Pinot doubled just after an involuntary punch from an assistant. There have been no controversies on this Tour yet. Spirits seem more peaceful after a turbulent 2021 edition.
► Also to be found: the previous postcards of the Tour de France