Tour de France Stage 6 Daily Dish

Speedy Suits, Martin's OK!, and Bora just can't let it go.


Joe Lindsey |

Speedy Suits, Martin’s OK!, and Bora just can’t let it go. – By Joe Lindsey

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Arnaud Démare Looking Trim in Custom Green Jersey Sprint Suit
It’s an honour to wear a leader’s jersey in any Tour de France classification, even for just a day. But for a lot of riders, it also comes with the reality of wearing unfamiliar kit. And many racers today wear one-piece “speed suits” on flat road stages for aerodynamics, which are often custom-made to their measurements. It seems ironic to put the race’s best sprinter in a less-aero ensemble.But le Coq Sportif, the official clothing sponsor for the leader’s kits, has a smart solution: a custom one-piece suit made by combining an aero jersey top and the shorts from the time trial suits they provide for those stages. The setup isn’t totally made-to-measure, but it solves some problems for sprinters like Arnaud Démare, who’s currently in the points jersey lead. The suit is more aerodynamic than separates, but still provides more comfort than a dedicated time trial skinsuit, as well as rear pockets for storing food. With his second-place finish on Stage 6, Démare will get another chance to wear green tomorrow, but rival Marcel Kittel is closing in.Tonybot’s CPU Is Fine, Says Team
A short report in the German outlet Radsport News made waves when it was picked up by CyclingTips and spread on social media: according to Radsport, German time trial and breakaway specialist Tony Martin suffered a concussion on the big Stage 2 crash. Martin, who’s been nicknamed Tonybot by some on social media because he’s a watt-producing machine, told Radsport he’d been dazed and nauseous after the crash, after which it took several minutes to regroup and remount his bike, and that he suffered a concussion. So, knowing what we know about the risks of further, serious brain injury from a subsequent fall when an athlete is healing from a concussion, why was Martin still in the race?

According to Katusha-Alpecin press officer Philippe Maertens, Martin does not have a concussion, actually. “Tony was really banged up and got nauseous when he saw the cut in his knee,” Maertens told Bicycling in an e-mailed response to a request for comment. “But he was and is OK in the head. If not, he would not be on the bike anymore. He was never diagnosed with a concussion. The race doctor [who examined Martin] let him go after the crash. The team doctor in the hotel after the stage did not diagnose anything serious.” Maertens did not dispute Martin’s quote to Radsport or claim it was misinterpreted, but underlined that no medical official who examined Martin ever diagnosed him with a concussion.

Our (Hopefully) Last Cav-Sagz Item
The debate over the Stage 4 crash between Mark Cavendish and Peter Sagan is barely slowing down, but both riders seem keen to move on, even if maybe their fans and teams aren’t.

This morning, Sagan tweeted a playful post with pictures of past sprint finishes between the two, saying he looked forward to racing against him again soon.

https://twitter.com/petosagan/status/882929681007341570

Cav replied just 10 minutes later with a note of respect and thanks himself.

That’s more than you can say for some on social media. Cavendish and his wife, Peta Todd, say they’ve been getting threats. Todd posted a picture of a particularly offensive comment from Facebook as an example. People. C’mon. If you’re an actual racing fan, consider that this is *just* a bike race. If you’re not a bike racing fan and you’re making these comments, then you are a troll.

Finally, while Cav and Sagan seem to be moving on, Sagan’s Bora-Hansgrohe team has taken the extraordinary step of appealing the expulsion to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Under Olympic rules with international governing bodies, CAS has final jurisdiction over all disputes in Olympic-recognised sports.

As we figured, CAS swiftly denied the appeal. There is literally no precedent for reinstating an athlete to an ongoing competition when they’ve already missed part of it and CAS was presumably loathe to set such a precedent. We understand Bora’s frustration—as we’ve written, the expulsion was unjustified and sets a terrible example—but at this point, the damage is done. Best to just let it go, gang.

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