Team Time Trials are always a wildcard in pro racing. It is a format pro teams rarely practice. Add in the incredibly high stakes of the Tour de France, the opening stage no less, where there is no option to play it safe and Saturday’s racing was always going to get a little bit weird.
For XDS Astana, the nerves and anticipation of starting a Tour de France quickly turned into a nightmare. After hitting a bump in the road, one rider in the line crashed. With no time or room to avoid him, two more riders from the team followed.
“Not the way we wanted to start the Tour de France,” was the team’s understated response on social media, adding “But there’s still a long way to go.”
Team Manager Alexander Vinokourov shared onboard footage from the rider just infant of the crash.
Amazingly, all XDS riders appear to have made it through. While battered, there are not yet any significant injuries reported. Cuts, bruises, some serious road rash. But this could have been much worse. It wasn’t fun, and a boatload of road rash isn’t the best way to roll into 20 straight days of racing. But at least riders will make it to Sunday’s start line.
“No fractures or serious injuries for our riders, but Nicolas Vinokourov, Harold Tejada , and Simone Velasco did sustain abrasions and various bruises,” the team reported.
The crash looks bad from every angle. One fan shared a front row seat view of the crash. It more clearly shows the manhole cover that the XDS Astana team hits that ends up causing the crash. In the videos above, you can see the bump bounce one rider’s arms out and off of the TT bars.
Cofidis also suffered a crash during the stage. Though a much less spectacular, it does sound like it’s had an impact on the team’s GC hopes.