Bang-up finish in Romandie

By Susan Westemeyer

It was a crash-bang finish in the Tour de Romandie Thursday, as the unorganised and chaotic sprint tore down the narrow street to the finish line. The most visible and prominent 'victim' was Saunier Duval's David Millar, who hit the ground in the mass pile-up and then watched the rest of the peloton trickle in while he sat on the road, leaning against the barriers. There was no damage done, though.

"He is OK and will be at the start today," team spokeswoman Virginie Ducrot Geinoz told Cyclingnews. "He will do this stage and tomorrow's stage 'tranquil' and will do his best on Sunday's chrono."

Gerolsteiner came away with mixed results in the stage. The previous day's stage winner Markus Fothen was able to make his way through the crash zone without too much difficulty. "Markus was lucky, he came through well and unharmed," said Directeur Sportif Reimund Dietzen on the team's website, gerolsteiner.de. Fothen's only fall was from third overall to fourth overall.

His teammate Bernhard Kohl wasn't so lucky. It wasn't enough that it started raining again at the end of the stage, but also "the road was quite narrow, especially in the last 100 metres, and after all, we were going about 65 km/h. I tried to stay relatively far forward in the field to stay away from any possible crashes," he wrote on his website, bernhardkohl.at.

"But that was the wrong bet. Two riders crashed directly in front of me and I couldn't avoid them. Nothing happened to me except for some scrape wounds on my arm."

T-Mobile had one rider involved in the crash, too, Michael Barry, who ended up with multiple scrapes on his left side and a cut on his forehead. "Michael looks pretty banged up, but I think he'll be back on the bike Friday," Directeur Sportif Tristan Hoffman told t-mobile-team.com.

The team lost another rider, though, not to a crash but to illness. Captain Michael Rogers, who lost more than 13 minutes on the first stage, did not start the stage. He started coming down with a cold on Wednesday. "We had hoped that Michael's condition would improve overnight. Unfortunately, the opposite occurred," said team doctor Stefan Vogt.

The team's best finisher on the day was sprinter Greg Henderson, who came in sixth. He said that he was "too often alone in the wind", and "couldn't find the right wheel" to follow in the sprint. "It didn't go perfectly, but I can be satisfied with my placing."

Rabobank's Jan Boven dropped out about three-quarters of the way through the day. "Jan needs one of those 25,000-kilometre services," said Directeur Sportif Erik Dekker on rabobank.nl. "He participated in nearly all races during the first part of the season. Jan was not exactly in perfect shape. He was still in the pack, but notified us that it did not make sense to continue."

Dekker is still hoping that his riders Thomas Dekker and Robert Gesink can do well in the race, but he may not be around to see how they finish up. He has been sick for several days and during Thursday's stage, had to let a team mechanic take over control of the team car because he did not feel well enough to drive.