To put matters to rights, Tinkoff-Saxo’s general manager, Stefano Feltrin, has issued a response to the media in hopes of putting the Alberto Condor crash controversy to rest – once and for all.
Since Contador’s crash during stage 10 of the Tour de France this week, a media frenzy has ensued with regard to widespread speculation as to what caused the Spanish rider to crash in the first place, and what led to his Specialized team bike allegedly breaking in half.
“It’s very simple. Alberto was towards the front with his teammates. He was trying to get something from his pocket and had one hand on the bars. He hit a bump and it caused his hand to slip and he went over the front of the bike. There was only one crash,” Feltrin told the media.
“Nico stopped and gave him his bike and Alberto rode his bike for around a kilometer. Alberto then had to stop because he had blood pouring from the wound and he had a broken shoe. He waited for a car and we saw the doctor dress his wound. At that point we had two cars and he took a spare bike from one car and he changed his shoe.”
Much of the media frenzy came about, when photos of Contador’s bike surfaced on the web – showing what appeared to be a bike snapped in half. Yet, despite initial reports that suggested the bike in question was in fact a spare bike that had been damaged as a result of a collision between team vehicles – rumors persisted that Contador had crashed as a result of bike failure.
To further clarify matters, Feltrin had this to say:
“On the second car, the one that Steven de Jongh was driving, there was another spare bike. There’s one per rider on each team car. Now the car that Steven de Jongh was driving became tangled with the Belkin team car. The bike that was destroyed was that third bike. So Alberto crashed once and it had nothing to do with his bike.”
“To be honest I saw the bike and saw it broken and there’s been a lot of speculation and a lot of people pick up on that. One person sees something, another sees something else. The bike that was snapped was never used.”
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