Caleb Ewan crashes in Tour de France as Vinegaard leads

Caleb Ewan’s misfortune at the 2022 Grand Tours continues with the Australian sprint star crashing badly in the unlucky 13th stage of the Tour de France.

Key points:

• Ewan fell for the second time on the Tour, breaking the rear wheel of his teammate’s bike during a fast descent and injuring his knee and shoulder.
• Mads Pedersen of Denmark completes the first 192km stage to claim his first Tour win
• Countryman Jonas Vingegaard took the conservative stage and maintained his lead with 2 minutes and 22 seconds

Lotto driver Soudal now faces an anxious night to see if he is fit to continue the three-week race as he treats shoulder and knee injuries from Friday’s spill.

Ewan had fought his way through the previous 48 hours of mountain work to prepare himself for victory on a sprinter’s day between Le Bourg d’Oisans to Saint Etienne.

But with 70km remaining of Friday’s 193km stage, the Sydney rider caught the rear wheel of his teammate’s bike during a sweeping left turn and fell heavily on his left knee.

Rising with difficulty, the bloodied Ewan, who had suffered one heavy fall earlier on the Tour when he hit a hay bale, climbed back up and tried to rejoin the peloton.

But that proved to be too much when he sought cover in the back of the team car, which earned him a tick from the race commissioner, and eventually had to unleash a ghost at the foot of the Cote de Saint-Romain-en-Gal climb with about 50km remaining.

Load

“Pocket Rocket” eventually hobbled home one of the last on the stage, about 20 minutes under winner Mads Pedersen.

“I don’t know what happened,” said a sad Ewan later. “There was braking in the middle of the corner, I had nowhere to go and it touched the rear wheel in front of me.

“My knee and shoulder are quite sore at the moment so hopefully it’s okay – but we’ll have to wait and see how it goes tonight.”

It was another sad chapter for Ewan, who is looking to enjoy a big European summer in 2022 but has yet to win a single stage at this year’s Grand Tours after the Giro d’Italia suffered a similar crash which he dubbed the “Giro from Hell”.

Twenty minutes to go, 2019 world champion Denmark Pedersen proved too strong in the final three-man sprint to claim his first stage win on the Tour.

He attacked from a six-man group with 12km remaining, knocking out three of his rivals before his final blast in the 250 meters also beat British runners-up Fred Wright and Hugo Houle of Canada.

After two brutal days in the Alps, race leader Jonas Vingegaard, his compatriot from Pedersen, had a very smooth day, well protected by his teammates at Jumbo-Visma.

Two-time defending champion Tadej Pogačar, who gave the yellow jersey in the first big mountain stage at the Col du Granon, did nothing to close his 2min 22sec deficit.

Mads Pedersen of Denmark and Team Trek – Segafredo won the inaugural Tour de France stage.(Getty Images: Tim de Waele)

It was a very successful Tour for the Danes, who have recorded three stage wins since the start of the race which started in their nation’s capital, Copenhagen.

“I think it’s great to be a Danish man now,” the leader of Vinegaard smiled.

Vinegaard’s real test awaits, with the general classification battle set to resume next week in the thin air of the Pyrenees before the race concludes in Paris in nine days.

Australia’s leading rider remains Team BikeExchange-Jayco’s Nick Schultz, 33rd overall with 57:12 down, while Michael Storer (Groupama FDJ) is 45th and Chris Hamilton (DSM) 50th.

The other survivors were Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) at 72nd, Michael Matthews (BikeExchange-Jayco) 95th and Ewan, who was 156th out of the remaining 157 competitors.

AP

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