Jens Voigt took a horrible fall on a steep downhill at 60 kph in today's Stage 16 of the Tour de France and was taken to the hospital. It was an absolutely frightening crash to witness -- straight down head first, seemingly on his face, right in front of the motorcycle camera. But according to a Twitter from Lance Armstrong (one of the biggest users of Twitter on the planet), he'd heard from Jens's teammate Frank Schleck that Jens would be ok. That's pretty third-hand information, so here's the other reports I've read.
The manager of team Saxo Bank, Bjarne Riis, did not hide his disquiet Tuesday night, after the crash of his rider Jens Voight on the descent from the Petit Saint-Bernard. “I only saw him after the accident and it looked very bad,” explained the winner of the 1996 Tour. “It is very difficult to evaluate the severity of his injuries. I did not see the crash, I only saw him after and it was not good”
This is roughly the same as what VN and CN have published from Riis about the accident.
Additionally, the article goes on to quote the Chief Doctor of the Tour updating Jens!’s condition:
The latest report has him talking at the hospital and having escaped a concussion but being held there overnight. I hope all is well. For any fan of cycling, Jens is a huge part of their fandom -- just one of the great, hard riders of the sport -- not a superstar, not a mountain man, but someone who gives his all every stage for his team. Without him, Saxo Bank is much, much weaker, and this Tour is a lot less exciting. So I just hope he is ok. Along with Fabian Cancellara and Andy Schleck, he's helped make Saxo Bank my favorite cycling team over the past couple years and I hope that he can recover, along with the team.
(Note: There's some rather frightening pictures of him below the fold -- don't click "Next" if you don't want to see it -- I didn't want to put them on the front page)
As far as today's stage went, Saxo did make an attack on the final climb of the day, the Cat-1 Petit Saint Bernard (which followed the earlier climb up the HC Grand Saint-Bernard). Nikki and Chris Anker Sorensen took over for Gustav Larsson, who'd displaced Astana at the front of the peloton, and put the screws into the remaining riders, eventually whittling down the field to around 15 contenders when Andy Schleck attacked. Contador went with him easily, as did 3rd place Bradley Wiggins and 4th place Vincenzo Nibali, but left in the dust were Lance Armstrong, Carlos Sastre, and Cadel Evans, the veterans of the Tour, left behind in the accelerations of the young studs. Frank Schleck and Andreas Kloden were able to stay with Andy and Bert to represent the "old guys" (although Frank's only 29, so I really shouldn't be calling him old) and Frank helped his brother launch several attacks on Contador to no avail. Eventually Frank ran out of gas and let the aforementioned Voigt (who'd been in the morning breakaway, as usual) to take over the pace making as he dropped back into the group. He took some good turns up front himself, but there was no dislodging any of the group of contenders (other than Frank) and they started to slow.
At this point, out of nowhere, Lance made a break from his following group and accelerated like we were used to seeing him do for 7 years on the Tour, but which we hadn't seen once in 2009. It was pretty exciting to see, even for those of us who aren't huge Lance fans, and he was able to single-handedly bridge the gap to the leading group on his own, giving Astana three riders to only 2 for Saxo and rendering the race basically over. Eventually, Frank and a bunch of other contenders (including Sastre and Christian Vandevelde) managed their way back to the yellow jersey group near the summit of the mountain, making all the attacks basically meaningless, but it was a rather exciting day. Of course, then Jens crashed on the descent to make everything much less enjoyable, but here's hoping he'll be ok.
For the stage, veteran Mikel Astarloza of the Euskatel-Euskadi team won the first race of his career as a pro (after turning pro in 2002) by breaking away from the four-man leading group of Franco Pellizotti, Amael Moinard, and Jurgen VandenBrouck, who cleared the climb together. Astarloza moved well up in the overall standings, while several riders including Cadel Evans, Tony Martin, and former yellow jersey holder Rinaldo Nocentini dropped way down. But the overall top 5 remained the same. And Andy will hopefully attack again on tomorrow's "Queen Stage" of the Tour. We'll see if Lance and Nibali and Wiggins can stay with him again. Do it for Jens, Andy! Do it for Jens.
| 1. |  CONTADOR Alberto |
21 | ASTANA | 67h 33' 15" | |
| 2. |  ARMSTRONG Lance |
22 | ASTANA | 67h 34' 52" | + 01' 37" |
| 3. |  WIGGINS Bradley |
58 | GARMIN - SLIPSTREAM | 67h 35' 01" | + 01' 46" |
| 4. |  KLÖDEN Andréas |
23 | ASTANA | 67h 35' 32" | + 02' 17" |
| 5. |  SCHLECK Andy |
31 | TEAM SAXO BANK | 67h 35' 41" | + 02' 26" |
| 6. |  NIBALI Vincenzo |
95 | LIQUIGAS | 67h 36' 06" | + 02' 51" |
| 7. |  LE MEVEL Christophe |
106 | FRANCAISE DES JEUX | 67h 36' 24" | + 03' 09" |
| 8. | SCHLECK Frank |
36 | TEAM SAXO BANK | 67h 36' 40" | + 03' 25" |
| 9. | SASTRE Carlos |
1 | CERVELO TEST TEAM | 67h 37' 07" | + 03' 52" |
| 10. | VANDE VELDE Christian |
51 | GARMIN - SLIPSTREAM | 67h 37' 14" | + 03' 59" |
| 11. | ASTARLOZA Mikel |
61 | EUSKALTEL - EUSKADI | 67h 37' 53" | + 04' 38" |
| 12. |  KREUZIGER Roman |
93 | LIQUIGAS | 67h 37' 55" | + 04' 40" |
Cadel is in 17th, over 7 minutes behind. Not such a wise selection for my TDF fantasy team, which is languishing in about 65th place among 120 contenders on Podium Cafe. Only Contador, Schleck, and Thor Hushovd have scored any significant points for me so far.
Update on Saxo Bank team site
Jens Voigt okay under circumstances
An examination at the University hospital in Grenoble this evening has initially given positive reports on Jens Voigt’s health after the nasty crash during today’s stage of Tour de France. He has incurred a fracture of the right cheekbone and for now he is staying at the hospital for further observation.
Jens has sent this greeting to the team:
“I think I was very lucky not getting severely hurt from today’s crash. Now I hope that you can focus on the race and I wish you all good luck with the hard stage tomorrow".
The whole team in France and the whole staff at Riis-Cycling wish Jens Voigt a speedy recovery and hope to see him and his strong and joyful spirit back on the team soon.
Posted by: Bill | July 21, 2009 at 07:31 PM
From Andy Schleck's Twitter tonight:
Jens is okay he is not in danger get stitches an broken cheekbone but he told us to kick a… Next days with a smile
Posted by: Bill | July 21, 2009 at 07:32 PM