THE final Tour de France of Tony Rominger's distinguished career ended in tragic fashion close to the finish at Plumelec yesterday when the Swiss, who finished second in 1993, was stretchered out of the race with a broken collarbone after a pile-up identical to the one which caused Bjarne Riis to lose a minute on Sunday.
Again the crash happened in the front of the bunch on a slight downhill, and again those caught behind were forced to take to the grass verge to get past or wait in frustration while the stack of tangled hikes and bodies blocking the road staggered painfully to its feet. Rominger was left sitting in the middle of the road, suddenly seeming tiny and fragile as he clutched his right shoulder while medics attempted to stanch the blood flowing from his thigh.
A broken collarbone - the commonest injury in a crash of this kind - was immediately diagnosed. The 36-year-old Swiss will retire at the end of this season after an 11-year career which has included a hat-trick of victories in the Tour of Spain, a win in the Tour of Italy, and several one-day Classics.
He intended to make one final attempt to regain the one hour distance record from Britain's Chris Boardman before hanging up his wheels, but this must now be in some doubt. To rub salt into his road rash, Rominger was showing his best Tour form for several years with a good fifth place in the prologue time trial.
As on Sunday, the chute occurred within six miles of the finish which meant that anyone caught up in it would be unable to rejoin what was left of the bunch as it flew into the finish. Switzerland's Alex Zulle, the runner-up in 1995, was again a victim, losing one hour 31 minutes. He has already come close to abandoning and his morale will have taken another battering. The Tour of Italy winner Ivan Gotti dropped over three minutes, and his fellow mountain man Marco Pantani lost one hour 20 minutes.
The finish at the top of the Cadoudal hill was contested by an elite group of 20 and won by last year's points winner Erik Zabel. On Monday he made his effort too early and was easily beaten by the yellow jersey wearer Mario Cipollini, but yesterday he waited until just 50 metres from the line before overtaking the Belgian Franck Vandenbroucke. Close behind was Zabel's leader Bjarne Riis, and they were followed by almost every rider with any pretension to a high placing overall.
All were conscious that on a hilltop finish, seconds are easily lost when splits occur in the bunch. The group contained seven of last year's top 10 finishers, and also Boardman, who continued his fine start to the Tour. He has lost no time on the favourites as the race has proceeded from Normandy across Brittany, and this more than compensates for the fact that Zabel's victory enabled the German to push him down a place into third overall.
