Murat, France,
Denmark’s Soren Kragh Andersen of the Sunweb team soloed to victory after a frantic run into Lyon on stage 14 of the Tour de France on Saturday.
Slovenian Primoz Roglic finished with an elite group of race contenders a few seconds behind the Dane to retain the lead in the overall standings ahead of a major mountain test on Sunday.
“We pulled it off, it’s the kind of thing you dream of,” Andersen said at the line. The 158-strong peloton left a carnival atmosphere in rugby-loving Clermont-Ferrand for a tricky run over five small hills on a hot day with Peter Sagan’s Bora team leading proceedings as the Slovak targeted winning a bunch sprint in Lyon.
With a perilous inner-city finish it was Andersen, however, who sprung a lightning attack in the final kilometre to clinch a second win for his team this week after Marc Hirschi’s solo win on Thursday.
Sagan came in fifth as the bunch sprinted to the line, but Ireland’s Sam Bennett stays ahead of the seven-time Tour de France points winner in the race for the green jersey.
Romain Bardet suffered a small haemorrhage following a concussion that forced him to pull out of the Tour de France on Friday, the Frenchman said on Saturday.
“An MRI in the morning revealed has confirmed a small haemorrhage following the concussion,” Bardet wrote on Instagram.
The 29-year-old crashed with 87km in the 13th stage, getting back on his bike despite a bout of dizziness and lost 2:30 to overall leader Primoz Roglic, slipping down to 11th on the standings from fourth.
His AG2R-La Mondiale team announced on Friday night that he was pulling out after he was taken for an emergency scan that showed he had suffered a concussion.
Tour de France chief doctor Florence Pommerie said the nature of the sport made it almost impossible to detect a concussion on the spot.
“You’re always a bit dizzy when you crash at 40 or 80kph,” she told reporters. “We didn’t prevent him from racing because he was showing no clinical signs of a concussion.”
Team manager Vincent Lavenu said that the 2016 Tour runner-up showed the first signs of a concussion after the stage.
“In the car that took us to Clermont (from the Puy Mary), he asked us to stop and he vomited. We already had a scan but we went straight to the hospital,” he said.
Authorities will reinforce restrictions on spectators on Tour de France climbs situated in coronavirus ‘red zones’ to avoid mass gatherings, organisers said on Saturday.
Organisers had announced on Friday that fans would not be allowed at stages finishes in zones where the virus’ circulation is high.
The list of red zones is updated on a regular basis, forcing authorities and organisers to adapt daily.
“There will be a stronger filtering at the bottom of the climbs,” Pierre-Yves Thouault, the head of cycling at Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) told reporters before the start of Saturday’s 14th stage to Lyon.
“There was already some filtering on 26 climbs. Now the filtering will be stricter and no fans will be allowed at the top of the Col du Grand Colombier (the finish of Sunday’s 15th stage), 400 metres from the line and 300 metres after the line,” Thouault added, explaining that all decisions would be made by local authorities.
French administrative regions, known as departments, are classified as red zones when the spread of COVID-19 infections is high, with more than 50 new cases recorded per 100,000 inhabitants in the last seven days.
The number of new, confirmed COVID-19 cases in France rose by 9,406 on Friday to stand at a total of 363,350.—AP
