Carnage continues in Tour de France

THE dogfight to control the peloton at the Tour de France is spiralling out of control, resulting in widespread carnage in the first week of the race, Australian cycling team boss Matt White says.

HUY, BELGIUM - JULY 06: Riders collect themselves after a crash with 65km left to race in stage three of the 2015 Tour de France from Anvers to Huy on July 6, 2015 in Huy, Belgium. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

THE dogfight to control the peloton at the Tour de France is spiralling out of control, resulting in widespread carnage in the first week of the race, Australian cycling team boss Matt White says.

A growing number of yellow jersey contenders — all backed by a dedicated train of teammates jostling for position — as well as inexperienced riders tackling classics-style stages and dangerous weather conditions had created a perfect storm for organisers.

White is in charge of Orica-GreenEDGE which has already lost three men — Simon Gerrans, Daryl Impey and Michael Albasini — to broken bones in first-week crashes, while Michael Matthews is riding on with fractured ribs.

Two men wearing the yellow jersey have also been forced to leave the race after separate crashes.

Fabian Cancellara surrendered the yellow jersey with a fractured vertebrae on Stage 3 and Tony Martin left the race as the overall leader with a broken collarbone after Stage 6, won by his Etixx-QuickStep teammate Zdenek Stybar on Thursday night.

White has been involved with professional cycling for more than 20 years and says this is the most treacherous first week he has seen at the Tour de France.

“It always had the potential to go like this, the parcours (course) and weather conditions was the perfect storm and it eventuated,” he said.

Riders get up after crashing during Stage 5.

But White believes the mentality of the peloton at the Tour de France is changing and has made for ultra-aggressive racing.

He said previously the majority of the peloton was happy for a handful of teams to control the tempo of the race, but that had changed.

“Every team wants to be in control, they’re told they need to do this and need to do that and they’re not happy with letting a few teams control things,” White said. “They want to keep their guy in the position they’re told to and that creates a lot more nerves in the bunch.

“The Tour de France is getting bigger, it’s a global event and there is pressure from sponsors. And that’s all part of what’s made the first week so treacherous.

“It’s not like this at other races — it’s starting to creep in — but it’s different at the Giro and the Vuelta.

“It’s like being in a one-day classic in Belgium but with half the bunch not classics riders.

“At the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix you know it’s going to be stressful and fighting wall to wall but everyone is accustomed to that style of racing.

“And that’s why we’re getting the crashes here at the Tour, we’ve got a mix of classics riders an climbers.”

Yellow jersey leader Tony Martin, visibly upset, holds his arm after crashing just before the finish line of Stage 6. Photo: Sarah Reed.

Australian cyclist Zak Dempster, who rides for Bora-Argon, described the first week of the Tour as a “war”.

“The thing about the Tour is everyone’s got so much on the line, so whether or not someone has two zeros more on their contract than you, if you’re strong enough to be on the front then you’ve got a right to be there,” Dempster said.

“It’s a war, basically. There’s not a lot of respect, so if you’ve got the opportunity to move up, you move up, and that’s the reason we’ve seen a lot of crashes in the last few days and pretty serious ones too.”

There is also a growing number of riders with general classification ambitions creating havoc at the front of the race.

“Definitely there are more GC contenders, it’s a very, very solid top 10,” White said.

“Whoever makes the top 10 this year, it will be one of the all-star top 10s that I’ve ever seen.

“(But) I don’t think it’s just the fact that they’re contenders, it’s the mentality of teams.

“What makes the race quicker is obviously tailwind sections but it’s more aggressive and more tense, the Tour de France the last couple of years has been all day, every day.

“Especially this first week. Until things settle at the Pyrenees, it will stay like this every day.

“The course always had that potential, then you throw in the weather conditions plus (the mentality of teams) and that explains the first week of the Tour.”

The peloton has 182km from Rennes to an uphill finish at the Mur de Bretagne in Stage 8 tonight and a 28km team time trial tomorrow before the first rest day on Monday.

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Originally published as Carnage continues in Tour de France