Cavendish Hits Veelers

The Tour de France is a tough sports event where cyclist can be injured badly. Stage 10 showed again the dangers of a mass sprint. Mark Cavendish and Tom Veelers touched each other and Veelers went down at 65 km/hr. This years’ Tour is not different than previous Tours. Every year riders get injured. Broken ribs, wrists, arms, concussions and scrapes happen almost every day. With high speed the riders hit the asphalt and it is sometimes amazing that they are still alive. Yesterday, in the heat of the mass sprint, Mark Cavendish touched Tom Veelers, just moments before the finish. Veelers (Argos-Shimano) lost his balance and fell. Fortunately he came away with some scrapes. He was lucky. Not only because his injuries were, surprisingly, not so very bad, but also that his work led to the second victory of team mate Marcel Kittel. Immediately after the race journalists and the tour organisation reviewed the tapes and everybody had his opinion about how this could have happened. Although many spoke immediately about the crash caused by Mark Cavendish, the officials of the Tour de France decided that it was the mistake of Tom Veelers himself. Who is right and who is wrong, will always be a discussion. Most important is that Tom Veelers can start again at stage 11. The eleventh stage on Wednesday will most probably not lead to injuries of any of the riders. The 33km long stage from Avranches to Mont Saint-Michel is an individual time trial. Le Mont Saint-Michel After the Eiffel Tower, Mont Saint-Michel attracts the most tourists in France. (Actually the most tourists are drawn to the Tour de France!) While the Eiffel Tower attracts 7 million visitors a year, Mont Saint-Michel attracts more than 3 million visitors annually. The Unesco World Heritage Site is a tidal island, with nice old architecture, which used to be reachable by road, only during low tide. Nowadays there is a road which is not covered by seawater anymore, so the riders in the Tour don’t have to worry about the high tide. Favorites stage 11 For the individual time trial there are two favorites. One of them is world champion time trial Tony Martin and the other one is the leader of the general classification, Christopher Froome. Although nobody thinks that the Dutch number 3 and 4 are of any threat to Froome, Bauke Mollema states that he is in a good shape and he probably will not loose too much time on the TT.