Basso's spring interrupted

2006 Giro winner stops in Tirreno and will skip Sanremo

"It really makes me upset. There is not a fracture to the scaphoid, which what I was afraid of, because that would have been a tragedy, but I took a good bang," explained Ivan Basso Friday evening, shortly after leaving the hospital to La Gazzetta dello Sport. The 29 year-old rider from Varese was in the car with his manager Giovanni Lombardi, driving back to the team's hotel where Saturday morning he decided say 'ciao' to the Tirreno-Adriatico.

"The orthopaedist [Francesco Rosa - ed.] said to me that I was saved from fracture by a few millimetres; if the scaphoid broke that would have been six weeks of not riding. They preformed three x-rays and in the night a MRI of the hand. I strained a ligament, and there is a deposit of liquid inside. All of my body weight went down on my left wrist when I crashed. They have applied a rigid bandage. To continue [in Tirreno] will be difficult."

By missing out of the final stages of Tirreno means that Ivan Basso will not take part in a crucial time trial test, stage 5 in Civitanova Marche. It is now also likely that he will skip Milano-Sanremo, in one week, due to the nervousness of the race. Although he prefers not to jeopardise his whole season the lack of competition kilometres could ruin his chances at a Giro d'Italia repeat.

"I don't want to risk anything," he stated. "If I got tendonitis in the wrist then I would compromise all of my season. The wrist is a delicate spot. ... Luckily it did not fracture. But something is there [in the wrist] and to race a bike like this, in a nervous race, is very demanding and not ideal."

Basso finished the day, accompanied by Discovery Channel teammate Vladimir Gusev, 6'54" back on compatriot and stage winner Riccò Riccardo.