Tour de France - Mikel Landa: One moment I was on my bike, the next one I was on the ground
Jul 16 2019 01:22 am CET
Photo of Mikel Landa
Mikel Landa crashed at the tenth stage of the Tour de France and arrived to the finish line more than two minutes after the stage winner Wout van Aert. The rider of Movistar was helped by several of his teammates while Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde got to the end with the first group.
It was a chaotic day in the Tour de France as crosswinds and the speed set by teams like Deceuninck-Quick-Step managed to break the peloton. In the beginning, Landa was in the front group but an accidental push by Warren Barguil made him crash and at the end, he joined the third group and lost more than two minutes in GC.
"It was a ‘shock’. At one moment I was on my bike, and at the very next one I was on the ground, surrounded by spectators," the rider commented. "Fortunately, I have no injuries. I was able to continue in one piece, and my team-mates really helped me a lot in a difficult situation. It’s ‘just’ a time loss – and the goal we came here for further away."
While Landa fell six positions in the General Classification, Quintana gained six. "When Mikel suffered that incident, the whole team stopped to support him while the two of us, Alejandro and myself, remained ahead to protect my position," the Colombian explained.
"We couldn’t really do much after that – just not to lose time ourselves. I finished OK, recovering some time against many contenders we were behind at today’s start. I’m gaining places in the GC, and just hope that my body and legs will respond well after the rest day.
The World champion stayed with Quintana in the front group until the end of the stage."It was awful to hear of Mikel’s crash," he said. "I didn’t see it. It was all going really well: we had got through the echelons in a perfect position, with pretty much everyone at the front, and at a certain point, we heard on the earpiece: ‘Crash Landa, crash Landa’.
"It was such a nervous stage, almost from the neutralized start, actually. Let’s hope those blows don’t hamper his performance. We will continue to fight with him and Nairo, who finished with me, to finish as high as possible in the GC."
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