TdF 2011: Most Dangerous in Past Decade

11th July 2011

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TdF 2011: Most Dangerous in Past Decade

The comments on cyclocosm.com’s most recent post Has the 2011 Tour de France Really Been More Dangerous? got me thinking and then searching. I looked through previous stages of the Tour de France at the riders that abandoned and tried to figure out why. Mainly I was hoping to find out if Cosmo’s claims were indeed true, while perhaps his method was flawed.

First off, I’ve only gone back through the last decade (2003 was tough to figure out). I’ve only gone through the first 9 stages. I’ll acknowledge that different years have different types of stages during the first 9 but … in the end, 9 days racing is 9 days racing, and a crash is a crash whether its on the mountains or in a bunch sprint. I’ve only tried to figure out the reason for abandonment rather than the number of crashes or the number of riders involved (that would require much more exhaustive research) plus this allows us to compare the number of riders abandoning the race due to injuries sustained in crashes hopefully providing a useful metric for dangerous crashes, rather than just the stages that are most crash prone.

*If you have any information beyond what I was able to find, feel free to link it in the comments, where I just list ‘withdrawal’ is where there is the most uncertainty.

2011 (198 starters, 18 withdrawals, 15 due to crashes)

Jurgen Van De Walle (Stage 4) crash
Christophe Kern (Stage 5) tendinitis
Janez Brajkovic (Stage 5) crash
Ivan Murillo Velasco (Stage 6) crash
Vasili Kiryienko (Stage 6) outside time limit
Tom Boonen (Stage 7) crash
Bradley Wiggins (Stage 7) crash
Remi Pauriel (Stage 7) crash
Benat Intxausti Elorriaga (Stage 8) crash
Cristopher Horner (Stage 8) crash
Alexander Vinokourov (Stage 9) crash
Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Stage 9) crash
Frederik Willems (Stage 9) crash
Juan Manuel Garate (Stage 9) crash
David Zabriskie (Stage 9) crash
Amets Txurruka (Stage 9) crash
Pavel Brutt (Stage 9) crash
Wout Poels (Stage 9) ~~crash~~ illness

2010 (~~198~~ 197 starters, 17 Withdrawals, 9 due to crashes)

~~Xavier Florencio (Prologue) DNS~~
Mathias Frank (Stage 1) crash
Manuel Antonio Leal Cardoso (Stage 1) crash
Adam Hansen (Stage 2) crash
Mickael Delage (Stage 2) crash
David Le Lay (Stage 3) crash
Frank Schleck (Stage 3) crash
Niki Terpstra (Stage 3) illness*
Christian Vande Velde (Stage 3) crash
Amets Txurruka (Stage 5) crash
Juan Jose Oroz Ugalde (Stage 7) withdrawal
Stijn Vandenbergh (Stage 7) outside time limit
Fabio Felline (Stage 9) withdrawal
Roger Kluge (Stage 9) withdrawal
Vladimir Karpets (Stage 9) withdrawal
Simon Gerrans (Stage 9) crash
Markus Eibegger (Stage 9) withdrawal

*While Niki Terpstra had crashed the ultimate reason for withdrawal was illness

2009 (180 starters, 9 withdrawals, 5 due to crashes)

Jurgen Van De Walle (Stage 3) crash
Piet Rooijakkers (Stage 4) crash
Robert Gesink (Stage 6) crash
Joly Sebastien (Stage 7) withdrawal
David Le Lay (Stage 8) crash
Eduardo Gonzalo Ramirez (stage 8) crash
Oscar Pereiro Sio (Stage 8) withdrawal
Koldo Fernandez De Larrea (Stage 8) outside time limit
Danilo Napolitano (Stage 9) outside time limit

2008 (180 starters, 10 withdrawals, 4 due to crash)

Herve Duclos-Lassalle (Stage 1) crash
Angel Gomez (Stage 3) crash
Juan Mauricio Soler (Stage 5) crash
Aurelien Passeron (Stage 6) crash
Lilian Jegou (Stage 7) time cut
Christophe Moreau (Stage 7) time cut
John Gadret (Stage 7) time cut
Mauro Facci (Stage 7) time cut
Magnus Backstedt (Stage 7) outside time limit
Manuel Beltran (Stage 8) doping

2007 (189 starters, 18 withdrawals, 9 due to crash)

Eduardo Gonzalo Ramirez (Stage 1) crash
Tomas Vaitkus (Stage 3) crash
Xabier Zandio (Stage 4) crash
Remy Di Gregorio (Stage 5) crash
Brett Lancaster (Stage 5) illness
Geoffroy Lequatre (stage 6) crash
Ruben Lobato (Stage 7) personal
Oscar Freire (Stage 7) saddle sore
Enrico Degano (Stage 7) crash
Ivan Ramiro Parra (Stage 8) withdrawal
Romain Feillu (Stage 8) withdrawal
Stuart O’Grady (Stage 8) crash
Mark Cavendish (Stage 8) withdrawal
Michael Rogers (Stage 8) crash
Cedric Herve (Stage 8) outside time limit
Danilo Napolitano (Stage 8) outside time limit
Robbie McEwan (Stage 8) outside time limit
Patrik Sinkewitz (Stage 9) crash

2006 (176 starters, 6 withdrawals, 4 due to crash)

Danilo DiLuca (Stage2) illness
Alejandro Valverde (Stage 3) crash
Fred Rodriguez (Stage 3) crash
Erik Dekker (Stage 3) crash
Fabio Sacchi (Stage 6) illness
Bobby Julich (Stage 7) crash

2005 (189 starters, 14 withdrawals, 8 due to crash)

Constantino Zaballa (Stage 5) crash
Claudio Corioni (Stage 6) knee pain
Alessandro Spezialetti (Stage 7) crash
Steve Zampieri (Stage 7) illness
Serguei Gonchar (Stage 8) withdrawal
Christophe Mengin (Stage 8) crash
Sylvain Calzati (Stage 8) crash
Leon Van Bon (Stage 8) withdrawal
Isaac Galvez (Stage 8) crash
Luciano Pagliarini (Stage 9) withdrawal
Jaan Kirsipuu (Stage 9) withdrawal
Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (Stage 9) crash
Jose Angel Gomez (Stage 9) crash
David Zabriskie (Stage 9) crash

2004 (188 starters, 16 withdrawals, 10 due to crash)

Nick Gates (Stage 1) crash (outside time limit)
Gian Matteo Fagnini (Stage 2) crash
Marco Velo (Stage 3) crash
Frederic Bessy (Stage 3) crash
Eddy Seigneur (Stage 4) outside time limit (TTT)
Bradley McGee (Stage 5) crash
Maryan Hary (Stage 5) outside time limit
Alessandro Petacchi (Stage 6) crash
Mario Cipollini (Stage 6) crash
Rene Haselbacher (Stage 7) crash
Christophe Brandt (Stage 7) doping
Sven Montgomery (Stage 7) crash
Samuel Dumoulin (Stage 9) crash
Martin Hvastija (Stage 9) doping investigation asked to withdraw
Stefano Casagranda (Stage 9) doping investigation asked to withdraw
Jaan Kirsipuu (Stage 9) withdrawal

2003 (198 starters, 23 withrawals, 6 due to crash)

Marc Lotz (Stage 2) crash
Levi Leipheimer (Stage 2) crash
Angel Vicioso (Stage 6) crash
Fabio Baldato (Stage 6) crash
Jaan Kirsipuu (Stage 7) withdrawal
Jesus Manzano (Stage 7) dehydration
Marco Velo (Stage 7) illness
Alessandro Petacchi (Stage 7) illness
Luis Perez (Stage 7) withdrawal
Michael Rich (Stage 7) knee pain
Olaf Pollack (Stage 7) knee pain
Sven Montgomery (Stage 8) illness
Volodymir Gustov (Stage 8) illness
Aitor Gonzalez (Stage 8) illness
Samuel Sanchez (Stage 8) time cutoff*
Pierre Bourquenoud (Stage 8) withdrawal
Antonio Tauler (Stage 8) withdrawal
Ignacio Gutierrez (Stage 8) illness
Nicola Loda (Stage 8) illness
Eddy Mazzoleni (Stage 9) withdrawal
Lilian Jegou (Stage 9) withdrawal
Jimmy Casper (Stage 9) crash
Stefano Zanini (Stage 9) withdrawal
Andreas Kloden (Stage 9) withdrawal
Angelo Furlan (Stage 9) withdrawal
Joseba Beloki (Stage 9) crash

* Samuel Sanchez was listed with ‘TC’ preceeding his name on the stage 8 results found here, but I wasn’t able to confirm

2002 (189 starters, 7 withdrawals, 5 due to crash)

Tom Steels (Stage 5) illness
Marco Pinotti (Stage 5) crash
Rik Verbrugghe (Stage 6) crash
Alexandr Shefer (Stage 6) crash
Didier Rous (Stage 7) crash
Oscar Freire (Stage 8) crash
Aart Vierhouten (Stage 8) illness

The following shows a decent comparison of how dangerous (in terms of crashes ultimately resulting in riders withdrawing) the first 9 stages have been in the past decade.

2002: 189 starters, 5 withdrawals due to crashes, 2.65% attrition
2003: 198 starters, 6 withdrawals due to crashes, 3.03% attrition
2004: 188 starters, 10 withdrawals due to crashes, 5.32% attrition
2005: 189 starters, 8 withdrawals due to crashes, 4.23% attrition
2006: 176 starters, 4 withdrawals due to crashes, 2.27% attrition
2007: 189 starters, 9 withdrawals due to crashes, 4.76% attrition
2008: 180 starters, 4 withdrawals due to crashes, 2.22% attrition
2009: 180 starters, 5 withdrawals due to crashes, 2.78% attrition
2010: ~~198~~ 197 starters, 9 withdrawals due to crashes, ~~4.55%~~ 4.57% attrition
2011: 198 starters, 15 withdrawals due to crashes, 7.58% attrition

Yes, this tour has had a rough start. The only other year in the last decade that even comes close is 2004 with 5.32% of the riders crashing out in the first 9 stages.

Edit: I just realized that for 2010 Xavier Florencio did not start the race and shouldn’t be counted in the starters. I’ve updated the calculations above.

Tagged: Tour de France crash 2011 TdF

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TdF 2011: Most Dangerous in Past Decade