Tour de France 2017: Richie Porte suffers horrific crash (Video)
The Tour de France can be a dangerous race at times, and Richie Porte took the brunt of the damage in a bad wreck during Stage 9 on Sunday morning.
Stage 9 of the 2017 Tour de France was expected to be a tough one before racers got a day of rest, but no one could’ve expected a bad crash like the one we witnessed on Saturday morning involving Richie Porte.
Porte apparently missed his turn on an already narrow route, and fell to the ground after veering off the road. With plenty of other bikers around him, Porte’s crash interrupted some of his competitors in the process, including Dan Martin specifically, and he took some serious hits after the initial fall.
Porte was reportedly telling doctors tending to him that he was okay after the fall, and luckily could still move his body and no severe damage looked to have been done. The Australian, a member of the BMC Racing Team, was transported in an ambulance after the fall, and had an otherwise successful day up until that point interrupted by a horrible incident.
Before the fall, Porte was reportedly going at 45 mph on the route when he crashed, so it’s surprising that he wasn’t seriously injured after he hit the ground on the fall.
According to @letourdata, @richie_porte was going 72.5km/h (45mph) when he suffered the crash that ended his @LeTour #TDF2017
— NBC Sports Cycling (@NBCSCycling) July 9, 2017
Regardless, the fall obviously ended his race, and he was taken to the hospital to get checked out. Meanwhile, Martin, the other biker involved in the crash, continued the race after the fall despite the collision.
It goes to show how dangerous of an event the Tour de France can truly be, and how some of these stages can be actually be impacted severely by one single slip or missed turn. The show must go on, but obviously tons of support goes out to Richie after the horrific fall.