Andrew Talansky's Tour de France problems continue with second crash

Andrew Talansky's Tour de France hopes took another tumble today when he crashed with Geraint Thomas heading into the finale of stage eight to La Mauselaine.

"Two crashes in two days is never a good idea," Garmin-Sharp sports director Charly Wegelius told Cycling Weekly. "No one ever wants to do that but they're bike riders and they're used to falling off. When he gets a bit of time, he'll focus again and he'll be fine."

It was the second crash in as many days. In the final kilometre yesterday, Talansky and Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge) became tangled up and Talansky tumbled.

The 25-year-old did not lose time in the overall classification as it was a flat run in and he was in the final three kilometres. Today, he could not benefit from that rule. After he overshot a wet right-hand bend and crashed with Sky's Thomas into a caravan, he picked himself up, fiddled with his bike and rode with his bloody backside showing through ripped, black lycra.

At the team bus, Talansky warmed down on his turbo trainer and afterwards, would not turn to talk to the press. Team Sky reported that Thomas is fine and that Talansky just slipped in front of him.

"He was on the leader's group, he was riding excellently in the group, he had Tom-Jelte [Slagter] with him and he was sitting there well," Wegelius said.

"I'm not sure how it happened. I think a rider came around the outside, but there wasn't space, the specifics are hazy.

"The fact that he's riding the rollers is a very positive thing to keep moving a little bit after the stage, but we wait until the doctor gets here to make an assessment.

"It's the third or fourth day after [a crash] that can be the worst for a rider in my own experience. We'll work through it and see how the situation is, I'm sure we'll find something or someway of getting through it."

Because of the lost time, 2-20 minutes, Talansky dropped from eighth to 16th at 4-22 minutes behind leader Vincenzo Nibali (Astana).

"You don't want to lose that kind of time, but it's still only the eighth stage and the wheel turns around for everybody," continued Wegelius. "Someone can fall off again tomorrow and with this weather... It's unfortunate and no one wants it to happen, but you almost have to put it into the planning in a race like this."

"Here on @Ride_Argyle [team Garmin] we never give up," Talansky wrote on Twitter. "This race is 3 weeks long, plenty of racing still to be done and plenty of time to achieve our goals."

Credit: Watson

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