Entering Stage 11 on Wednesday, 20 of the 198 riders who pushed off from the Brittany coast for the start of the race had been knocked out of contention. Of that missing 10 percent of the field, 16 riders left the race because of either broken bones or concussions. Several dozen more are riding hurt, trying to hang on despite being involved in one or more of the many brutal crashes.
The tumult has removed four podium contenders, including Alexandre Vinokourov, who tumbled deep into a wooded ravine in a huge pileup on Sunday, suffering a compound fracture of his upper femur. Tour favorite Alberto Contador has fallen on at least four occasions, losing time to his rivals, but nothing he can't erase when the real test begins in the mountains.
Two crashes were caused by deus ex machina. Quite literally. A motorcycle carrying a still photographer alongside the peleton hit a Danish rider named Nicki Sorensen during Stage 5, took him down, and dragged him for a bit before spinning him into the spectators lining the road. Then on Sunday, a car from the French television network broadcasting the race tried to pass a breakaway group, swerved to miss a tree growing near the narrow road, and sideswiped one of the riders at about 35 m.p.h. That rider, Juan Antonio Flecha of Spain, went down hard, and the man just behind him, Johnny Hoogerland of the Netherlands, hit the fallen Flecha and was somersaulted off the road. Hoogerland was impaled on a barbed wire fence as he landed and eventually required more than 30 stitches to close three deep gouges. Both Flecha and Hoogerland got up and finished the stage - with Hoogerland bleeding profusely down one leg - and are still in the race.
