Dhe fifth stage of the Tour de Suisse was overshadowed by a serious fall by Swiss professional cyclist Gino Mäder. The 26-year-old came off the road towards the finish line and fell into a ravine. “Mäder was unresponsive, was revived on the spot and then transported by helicopter to the Chur hospital,” his team told Bahrain Victorious.
The race doctor was quickly at the scene of the accident and immediately provided help, the message said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with Gino,” the team wrote. Magnus Sheffield (21) from the Ineos Grenadiers team fell in the same place, but the American got off lightly.
Road bike world champion Remco Evenepoel raised serious allegations after the king’s stage. “I hope that today’s stage finale is food for thought for both the organizers and ourselves as riders. A mountain finish would have been possible without any problems. So it wasn’t a good decision to let us end the stage with this dangerous descent,” the Belgian wrote on Twitter.
The Swiss professional cyclist Roland Thalmann, who passed the spot minutes after the accident, was shocked. “In a long bend I saw two wheels that no longer looked good. Looking around I saw two riders quite deep in the chasm next to the road. It wasn’t a pretty sight,” he said on Swiss television SFR.
Aldag calls for a round table
Rolf Aldag, sports director at the German professional team Bora-hansgrohe, suggested a round table in the safety discussion. You have to “reflect calmly: what makes sense? What is purposeful? How are we going to continue? Teams, organizers and athletes have to sit at one table. But we should take our time, fast, tabloid headlines haven’t helped anyone,” said Aldag on Friday.
The 54-year-old rejected the criticism from the paddock at the course and called for prudence. “After a fall like this, everyone involved is very emotional. Reacting from the first shock makes no sense at all,” said Aldag: “It damages the credibility of our sport.”
In the fight for the day’s victory, the front of the field initially didn’t notice anything from the falls. The Spaniard Juan Ayuso from the UAE Team Emirates prevailed after 211 kilometers and three Alpine passes from Fiesch to La Punt on the decisive climb and moved up to third place in the overall ranking over Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step).
The yellow jersey of the overall leader was taken back by the Dane Mattias Skjelmose (Trek-Segafredo) from the Austrian Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën Team). The Tübingen professional Marius Mayrhofer (Team DSM) had to give up the race.
Even before the first big climb of the hardest stage, a group of 30 around the Belgian Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) tried to escape to the front and temporarily gained a lead of three and a half minutes. In the peloton, Gall’s Team AG2R kept up the pace to keep their man in the lead. Ayuso had the strongest legs on the Albula Pass and secured the day’s win.
The sixth stage of the Tour de Suisse has been shortened after a massive rockfall and will start this Friday in Chur instead of La Punt. This was announced by the organizers of the bike race in the morning. A total of 65 kilometers are omitted because the route over the Albula Pass cannot be driven on. The stage now leads over almost 141 kilometers from Chur to Oberwil-Lieli in the canton of Aargau. A huge stream of rock and debris just missed the Swiss mountain village of Brienz on Friday night.