In the violent fall on the Tour of the Basque Country, Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard suffered, among other things, a bruised lung. His team Visma-Lease a Bike announced this on X, formerly Twitter. Vingegaard remains in the hospital.
The racing team had previously announced that the 27-year-old suffered a broken collarbone and several broken ribs in the massive crash on the fourth stage.
Vingegaard also suffered a pneumothorax, where air gets into the gap between the lung and the chest wall. This means the lungs can no longer expand as well as before. She collapses. A life-threatening situation can arise. Vingegaard’s condition is stable, his team said.
On Thursday, several drivers fell in a right-hand bend around 35 kilometers from the finish in Legutio and slipped into a concrete ditch. Vingegaard’s opponent Remco Evenepoel broke his collarbone and the 24-year-old also suffered a fracture to his shoulder blade.
Geschke sees drivers at fault
Simon Geschke sees the reason for the serious fall of the top professional cyclists as the drivers. “It was one hundred percent the drivers’ fault. They were simply too fast. The road was good, it was dry. It wasn’t a corner that came as a complete surprise,” the race participant told the German Press Agency. “I’m glad that no one is in a coma,” said the 38-year-old veteran, who is retiring after this season.
“It’s this whoever brakes loses mentality,” said Geschke, who drove past the scene of the accident and already suspected that the favorites were affected. “It’s extremely tragic, but from my point of view it’s the drivers’ nervousness. Everyone wanted to be in the top ten on this descent. And if no one brakes, something like this happens. But it’s hard to pinpoint someone to blame.”
According to Geschke, drivers don’t need to “complain about the route and poor road surface,” he said: “Many falls are the drivers’ fault.”
