BMC medical staff have diagnosed the injuries of their riders after today's disastrous stage of the Tour de France. Darwin Atapuma is out of the race with a broken leg while Tejay van Garderen has hurt his shoulder.
BMC Racing Team's Darwin Atapuma broke his left femur in Friday's crash at the Tour de France.
BMC Racing Team Chief Medical Officer Dr. Max Testa said X-rays and a CT scan revealed a fracture of Atapuma's distal femur.
"It is a non-displaced fracture but it is intra-articular, so most likely it will require some surgery," Dr. Testa said. "We hope to have an orthopedic specialist do the procedure tomorrow. Based on the outcome, we will decide the rehab program and the timing for him to go back on the bike in a few weeks."
Atapuma was competing in his first Tour de France and sitting in 88th place overall when he went down in a pile-up along with teammate Tejay van Garderen with 16 kilometers to go in Friday's 234.5-km race.
BMC Racing Team Sport Director Max Sciandri said Atapuma's climbing prowess will be missed in the mountain stages that lie ahead.
"This is a big loss for us because Darwin had a really good training camp after the Critérium du Dauphiné with Tejay, they had built a great relationship and he was climbing really well," Sciandri said. "He was going to be our last man next to Tejay. But we still have a good group of riders who can climb with Amaël Moinard, Peter Velits and Peter Stetina."
Dr. Testa said van Garderen's injuries from his crash Friday are mostly superficial.
"Unfortunately, Tejay went down on the same shoulder he injured on the pavé a couple days ago," Dr. Testa said. "So he has some contusion in his shoulder. But he has good range of motion. He is responding well to the treatment and his morale is good. So we look forward to seeing him getting better and better every day."
A third BMC Racing Team rider, Marcus Burghardt, is nursing an AC joint separation of his right shoulder after crashing on Thursday.
"He cannot put weight on the shoulder so he has to sit a lot," Dr. Testa said. "That is a problem when they start accelerating, but he managed greatly. I have to give him credit for what he did today. We hope he can do the same for the next two days and make it to the rest day and then we will see what happens after that."
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