Like most other teams, Tinkoff-Saxo had several riders involved in yesterday's crashes. Both Rafal Majka and Nicolas Roche hit the deck and even though the latter fell out of GC, both have only suffered superficial injuries.
Yesterday’s marathon 247-kilometer stage from Sassano to Montecassino took a hectic turn when most of the peloton was involved in a huge crash with 11 kilometers to go – 3 k before the final climb. Unfortunately, several Tinkoff-Saxo riders were involved in the crash. Rafal Majka, Pawel Poljanski, Ivan Rovny and Nicolas Roche all went to the ground.
After attending to the riders together with the team doctor Lars Michaelsen gives an update on the riders:
“Rafal crashed in the roundabout but managed to reach the front chasing group before the climb started - and despite returning to the group after a high effort he followed the rest of the favorites in the attempt to drag back Michael Matthews and Cadel Evans on the 8,5 kilometer climb. This means that Majka moves up a place in the GC to 4th position. He went down on his left side and has pain in his hip and knee, but he’ll be able to continue and recover on tomorrow’s flat stage”, says Lars Michaelsen.
Nicolas Roche also crashed and damaged his bike, which meant that he had to wait for another bike loosing 15 minutes in the GC.
“Nicolas crashed and has wounds and cuts on his lower left side. He’ll need a couple of days but the doctor says that it’s superficial. But he’ll need a couple of days to get rid of the pain before he’s back at full strength again. Then he will be a very important part in supporting Majka and going for a stage win”, explains the Danish sport director.
Also Ivan Rovny and Pawel Poljanski went to the ground hard. They have skin abrasions after the contact with the tarmac but will be able to continue the race and support the team.
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