No one ever wants to end their Tour de France in the back of an ambulance. But that is what befell Jack Haig on stage seven of the race, in what turned out to be a horror day for Bahrain Victorious.
The Australian was one of two GC options for Bahrain in the race, but with around 6km to go on the seventh stage, and the finish line at Mûr-de-Bretagne looming, a crash in the middle of the front bunch took down 10 riders, including Haig and his team-mate Santiago Buitrago.
Haig was forced to abandon with head trauma, but Buitrago – who was 14th overall before the stage – was able to finish; however, the Colombian ceded 13 minutes, meaning his aspirations for a top-10 finish lay in tatters.
Forty-five minutes after the stage concluded, Haig was brought back down to the Bahrain Victorious bus in a team car and gingerly stepped on board. He didn’t speak to the waiting press, but informed staff members that he was “feeling better than I was.”
Buitrago will be assessed overnight and a decision on whether or not he will continue in the race will be made tomorrow.
“Cycling is cruel sometimes,” said Matej Mohorič, Bahrain’s talisman in recent years. “As did everyone, they’ve been preparing for these races for many months, and today it’s pretty much all gone to hell for both Jack and Santi.”
That’s the Tour de France: one moment it’s pretty sunflower fields and massive crowds, and the next it’s a hellish nightmare. “I've lived this before,” Mohorič continued, “with Mikel Landa sometimes in the Giro [d'Italia]. I’ve definitely been here before.”
Mohorič hadn’t spoken with Haig at the time of the interview, but he described seeing Buitrago: “His back didn’t have much skin left. It’s not ideal like that to continue in the Tour de France. We will evaluate how he is.”
The good thing for Bahrain is that there’s still two-thirds of the race remaining. The Tour, always a rollercoaster of emotions, was harsh to the team on stage seven, but it could prove kind to them as the race heads into the mountains.
“We will reevaluate our goals – we know we still have ambitions to go for a stage win with others, and we’ll do the best we can,” Mohorič concluded.
The team’s sports director, Roman Kreuziger, was less upbeat, instead summing up a frustrating and unwanted day for the team. “Yep,” he sighed. “This is cycling.”
