What the hell? 4 riders in hospital - Tour of Basque Country

[tombeej]

The international pro racing community is up in arms about what happened today at Tour of Basque Country. All over Twitter as well.

 

4 riders in hospital when colliding with metal poles on the sprint finishing straight of stage 1.

 

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/riders-angry-after-high-speed-basque-country-crash

[velomonatiCT]

some morons head should roll ....or his nuts

[tombeej]

Sorry, this happened on stage 1 yesterday.

[Bonus]

Saw some pics of their bikes. Was an absolute mess.

 

Very bad state of affairs.

[milky4130]

Please can someone Post some pics & videos of the damages or footage of the collisions.

[Brian Fantana]

These are the poles in question, not sure if they had the orange cones on the during the race:

 

[jimmycool]

If you look closely you can see the blood stains on the ground between the poles...

[Uni]

http://youtu.be/IS6QKeSCtFQ

[Pieterg]

Eina dis crazy!!!!!

[Sharkie 2]

What the hell!!!

 

Surely you would barricade around the poles and close them off properly. FFS I see one of the riders is going to be out for several months, that could be a career ending crash

[dirtypot]

That's hectic.  Zero chance of avoiding that in a bunch!  You wouldn't even see it before you hit it.

[CASSIE1975]

some morons head should roll ....or his nuts

 

What the hell!!!

 

Surely you would barricade around the poles and close them off properly. FFS I see one of the riders is going to be out for several months, that could be a career ending crash

 

Agreed       what the FUDGE!!! 

[Ratty]

Why did the bunch go so wide there, they had the whole road. The front guys passed it easily, but looks like the guys towards the back snaked towards it.

 

Surely if you are a pro rider you will check out the finish before the race?

 

In the video they did have the orange cones up so they had made them more visible.

[Spinnekop]

Why did the bunch go so wide there, they had the whole road. The front guys passed it easily, but looks like the guys towards the back snaked towards it.

 

Surely if you are a pro rider you will check out the finish before the race?

 

In the video they did have the orange cones up so they had made them more visible.

Don't comment if you have not ever been in a chaotic sprint like that in your life.

The only thing you see is the rider in front of you' wheel and you only think about sprinting....

Doing around 60km/h you have NO chance.

 

This was just insane stupid.  They should have put barriers up.... 

['Dale]

Bmc's Stetina really got hurt hey

 

Broken tibia and patella, I've read

 

Terrible

[Tubehunter]

Why did the bunch go so wide there, they had the whole road. The front guys passed it easily, but looks like the guys towards the back snaked towards it.

 

Surely if you are a pro rider you will check out the finish before the race?

 

In the video they did have the orange cones up so they had made them more visible.

 

Ratty, as a somewhat more recreational rider we will look at this scenario and wonder how a cyclist could simply just ride into this?? Makes no sense right?

 

But when you're at the end of a stage and bleeding through your ears from effort and every inch of effort goes into holding a wheel trying to maximise your return on effort, all judgement about where, different unforeseen obstacles could be absolutely vanish. Bear in mind most sprinters tuck head down when they put in maximum effort and use their peripheral vision to keep them in a straight line.

 

As an example here's one of the craziest I remember watching live on TV. In those days the barriers had feet that stuck into the inside of the lane and Djamolidine Abdoujaparov who was one of the best sprinters at the time hit this at full pace.

 

http://www.google.pl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=video&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCUQtwIwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DoBtCaLYFKjo&ei=JfAkVbW8EdXc8AXd_IDgBA&usg=AFQjCNE5XGpDweqzCI2v5w-uh5qCok-uJw&bvm=bv.90237346,d.dGc

 

(Edit: Please let me know if the link works as I can't open YT at the office, but I've copied the link to the video through google. Alternatively, you could google '1991 Tour de France Abdu crash')