Tour de France: Lipowitz falls badly and gets out

48 hours after Jonas Vingegaard’s retirement, Lipowitz, the two who climbed onto the podium alongside Tour winner Tadej Pogacar in Paris a year ago, was also hit. Although Lipowitz was able to get up himself, he left the hastily brought stretcher untouched. But with one hand on his injured shoulder and obvious pain, the 25-year-old left his racing bike and walked off the road before getting into a support vehicle. A return of the evilness of this sport, which is unfortunately part of it. And, like two days ago when Vingegaard himself crashed into a curb, this accident had a history.

Nightly doping controls were carried out on Vingegaard and Pogacar the The topic of the last days of the tour, before it was Lipowitz and the entire Red Bull team’s turn on Monday. “We were also visited tonight. Some of the racing drivers were already asleep and took part in the controls,” reported team manager Ralph Denk in the ZDF morning magazine before the start. Unlike Vingegaard and Pogacar, the checks at the Red Bull racing team did not take place in the middle of the night, but at around 10 p.m. In the Vingegaard case, suspicions arose in the paddock that there was a connection between the nighttime rehearsal and the crash.

Lipowitz’s teammate Evenepoel triumphs in his special discipline

The tranquil and sleepy health resort and destination of this 16th stage was unrecognizable compared to the days before. Countless crowds populated the small town of Thonon-les-Bains – and watched as Lipowitz’s Belgian captain colleague Remco Evenepoel triumphed in his specialist discipline. As on Sunday, only he was faster than the overall leader Tadej Pogacar. On the 26.1 kilometer short time trial course, the Olympic champion reduced his gap in the overall ranking by half a minute, and the Dane Mattias Skjelmose Jensen came third on the day.

Lipowitz was in fifth place before the start of the stage, but without the accident he would probably have gained a few seconds in the competition for third place on Paul Seixas from France and the Mexican Isaac Del Toro, who were ahead of him. At the evening press conference, Pogacar explained that he too had stumbled in the corner that was so fatal for Lipowitz (which was evident in the race). When inspecting the route, he “couldn’t see this clearly,” says Pogacar: “I hope Lipo is okay.” It was not initially known what exact injury Lipowitz sustained. And so a Tour de France day came to an end for the German team Red-Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, which could hardly be more emotionally ambivalent.