Deja vu for Richie Porte as Australia’s Tour hopes come crashing down
Related Story: Richie Porte crashes out of Tour de France for the second straight year
"It was just a crash after 7 kilometres," said BMC Racing's Italian sports director Fabio Baldato about the moment that cost Richie Porte his place in the peloton in the 2018 Tour de France.
Only moments after stepping out of the team car at the end of the ninth stage, Baldato took a moment to reflect on a chaotic stage from Arras to Roubaix and added: "There was a lot of stress from everybody."
This was a day every rider was anxious about. On the menu were 15 sectors, and about 55km, of cobbled roads — nasty, rough, cobblestones that evoke fear in those who even consider riding over them.
Put them in a race and they become rocks that strike fear into the combatants. The "pavé", as the cobbled roads are called in France, are part of cycling folklore, made famous by the Classics of April.
Paris-Roubaix is a one-day race that many sports fans are familiar with and the riders who finished first and second into Roubaix on Sunday have both won the legendary "Hell of the North" in the past.
John Degenkolb beat the rider in the yellow jersey, Olympic champion Greg Van Avermaet, and there was a reason for BMC Racing to be pleased with the result.
Van Avermaet has led the Tour since stage three when BMC Racing won the team time trial.
The Belgian teammate of Porte gained time on his overall rivals and now has a strong advantage of 43 seconds over the next best rider, the Welshman from Team Sky, Geraint Thomas.
But the news of the day for Australian sports fans was not about the winner or the yellow jersey, but about Porte and what had seemed like a relatively innocuous incident.
Things like this happen often in cycling, a touch of wheels on a random stretch of tarmac and, in an instant, someone goes down.
Often they bounce back up. Sometimes they linger a little longer on the crash scene. And, unfortunately, all too regularly the crash victim holds their collarbone and winces in pain.
That's the telltale sign that the most common of cycling injuries has struck. "Fracture. Clavicule". They are two words seen a lot in bike racing.
The official original diagnosis didn't quite spell that out. Rather, in French, it stated: "Disjonction acromio-claviculaire de l'epaule droite" — acromioclavicular disruption of the right shoulder.
One of the Tour's doctor's paraphrased the diagnosis before that report was written.
"It's okay," she said, "it's a trauma of the clavicule".
The medico is used to such things. She's tended to many injuries like this over the years. But, for Porte and his team, it's anything but "okay"— it marks the end of the 33-year-old's campaign.
Another ninth stage, another DNF for Richie, one of the true favourites for the yellow jersey.
"He went down really bad," said Baldato, one of the first on the scene of the accident. "It looks like the shoulder was dislocated," he said before adding, "and they put it in".
The team's principal, Jim Ochowicz, had spoken earlier about what he'd learned and he assured journalists who had gathered outside the BMC Racing bus that the injury wasn't too bad, even if it was enough to end Porte's eighth Tour de France.
"No fractures," he said.
External Link: Chris Froome tweet: Absolutely gutted for @richie_porte Heal up soon mate #TDF2018
By then, Porte had been examined in a hospital in nearby Cambrai and given the all-clear to leave. Ochowicz then said that the team would regroup and consider what races he would do later in the season, once Porte had time to recover.
"Richie is not injured," Ochowicz said.
"He is fine and now we make a new plan.
"Maybe we are looking at the Vuelta," he added, in reference to the third Grand Tour of the season, the Vuelta a España in September.
"He is in good form. It's not as if this injury is going to slow down anything. He is going to go home and heal but again," repeated "Och".
"It is not a fracture that is going to keep him out of training for six weeks. He will be back on his bike in a couple of days."
A few hours later, the team issued another statement, this time confirming the reason for the early exit from the Tour.
The collarbone was indeed fractured and it was the correct decision to withdraw Porte from the race.
He didn't even get to the pavé. He will get to race another day and his injuries, as Baldato pointed out, are "nowhere near as bad as last year".
Australia's hopes of a second Tour victory with the BMC Racing team are, however, over.
Van Avermaet will hold the yellow jersey for at least two more days: the rest day on Monday and again in stage 10 in the French Alps after the transfer to Annecy following the rough, dusty, hellacious race to Roubaix on Sunday.
There is a festive spirit in France that reminds us what sport can to do when victory is achieved.
"Allez les bleus" echoes around the country and the nation is in celebration about the victory in the World Cup.
The Tour de France isn't immune to the influence of football, it's impossible to ignore. There are celebrations going on that will likely last for years to come.
But for Australian sports fans, the hope of another victory in the Tour came crashing down before the cobbles, before the mountains, and before Porte really got a chance to show what makes him one of the best cyclists on the planet.
Allan Peiper, the Australian sports manager of BMC Racing, summed it up after he emerged from the team car:
"Obviously it's a bit of numbness at the start. And then disbelief. And then you go through a whole range of emotions. It's definitely been a testing day, that's for sure," he said.
External Link: Richie Porte Facebook post
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