The Tour de France began on Friday and the riders will spend over three weeks cycling about 100 miles per day as they ride throughout Denmark and France. With 176 riders inches apart from each other for about four hours a day, there will inevitably be some crashes. And with crashes come injuries.
One of the favorites to win the Tour de France took a hard tumble during Wednesday’s Stage 5. Slovenian Primož Roglič was in the middle of the peloton (main group) when he and some other riders crashed when one of them clipped a dislodged hay bale that’s ironically meant to warn the riders to not hit various things on the road.
We didn’t know Roglič’s condition during the stage but he did continue and rode the remaining 19 miles to finish nearly two minutes behind the people he was racing with. After the stage, Roglič talked to the media and revealed that he had to pop his shoulder back in place in order to continue.
Roglič said, “Yeah, I couldn’t put it immediately back in on the road so I needed to sit on the chair of [a] spectator and I have a technique to pull down and I put it back in.”
Stage 5 was rough to begin with because the riders went through 12 miles of cobblestones but this crash took place on asphalt between two cobblestone sections. Roglič is still in the race but now he’ll be running the next 18 days on a previously dislocated shoulder and is over two minutes behind countryman and Tour favorite Tadej Pogačar. Needless to say, this might not be Roglič’s year.
Australian Simon Clarke powered through the cobblestones in a six-rider breakaway to win Stage 5. American Neilson Powless attacked for the win on the last stretch but fell short of the stage win and the Yellow Jersey as he finished fourth and is ranked second overall, 13 seconds behind Belgian Wout van Aert.
[Photo: ITV Sport]
