Interviewed just after the stage finish, Pidcock said that it was the first time he had ever crashed during a Grand Tour and put the blame squarely on the whitewash that had been painted on the corner. “I don’t know what they do to the roads here when they are cleaned, but they put that white s— over them. And that’s very slippery,” the Briton said.
The Tour’s organisers have been using the whitewash to try to reduce the temperatures of roads that have been baked by unrelenting heat since the race started in Barcelona almost two weeks ago. Speaking after he finished that same stage into Le Lioran, Paul Seixas, the French general classification challenger, said the top surface of asphalt was melting on the descent where the two Pinarello riders crashed. “The descent was like an ice rink, so it was lucky we were at the front at that point. We didn’t try to take any risks on the descent,” Seixas said.
Merlier completes his hat-trick
On Thursday Tim Merlier reinforced his position as the fastest sprinter in this year’s Tour when he won his third stage of the race, into Chalon-sur-Saône. In a chaotic finale during which several riders crashed 500m from the line, the Belgian burst out of the heaving pack with 100m remaining and finished half-a-bike-length clear of Olav Kooij, with Jasper Philipsen in third.
“After yesterday’s disappointment, I was really focused today and remained calm and relaxed the entire time,” Merlier, 33, said. “In the end I just did my best to finish it off. I’m happy to win three stages in a single Tour de France for the first time in my career.”
The crash occurred when Fernando Gaviria clipped the wheel of a rider in front of him and went down sideways. Soren Waerenskjold, the stage 11 victor, could not avoid the Colombian sprinter and, as the Norwegian hit the deck, three other riders cartwheeled over his prone body. Jenno Berckmoes appeared the worst affected, with cuts and grazes apparent through the many rips and holes in his skinsuit. Gaviria, holding his left arm gingerly to his chest, was pushed across the line by a team-mate.