A team manager has criticised Australian Nicole Frain for her part in a monster crash on day two of the women’s Tour de France, which forced his key rider out of the race.
Frain was thrown through the air and slid along the road for several metres, leaving a dark skid mark on the road surface in her wake after the crash, which happened with about 25km left in the stage.
The 29-year-old reigning Australian national champion was on the rear wheel of a competitor as she approached the crash site. She ducked out from behind the competitor and had to dodge several other stopped riders before clipping race favourite Marta Cavalli and crashing over the top of fellow Aussie Amanda Spratt.
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Frain was trying to make up time having been earlier stuck behind another crash.
Cavalli’s team boss Stephen Delcourt said he had “no words” to describe the crash.
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“One rider come back after one crash … I think she don’t see Marta and the second crash and she arrived at maybe 50 (km/h) and Marta was at five or six (km/h) and directly, boom.
“I have no words because when you saw images like this, it’s really hard.”
Cavalli initially got up to continue riding, but was shortly pulled from the race for treatment of a possible concussion.
In a post on social media, Frain said she wasn’t aware of the crash in front of her, until she was in the thick of it.
“After working hard to come back to the peloton in the convoy and with my teammate, the speed we rejoined the pack would have matched their pace,” she said.
“Unfortunately as I came off the wheel I was unaware (of) riders on the road but I didn’t have the opportunity to do the same given I didn’t see it.”
“This meant I crashed overtop (sic) of the rider on the ground and I did my best to avoid it but I had nowhere I could go.”
The stage was win by Marianne Vos, who broke away from a group of six to win the stage and claim the yellow jersey.
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