Hansen breaks fingers

By Susan Westemeyer

T-Mobile's Adam Hansen was excited about riding the Giro in only his first year on a ProTour team, but it hasn't quite worked out the way the Australian hoped - instead of continuing triumphantly on to Milan, he is now facing an operating room at the Freiburg University Clinic in Germany.

There was only one mountain in Sunday's second stage, and it proved to be his undoing. "It was so simple, a rider in front of me riding uphill decided to cross my wheel without looking and there was nothing I could do as I had a rider on the other side," he told Cyclingnews.

"If he would have paid a little more attention, then I would have been still be racing today."

Although he hurt his hand in the resulting crash, Hansen finished the stage, but with difficulty. "In the last 40km I had huge problems because that was the hilly part, so I couldn't brake well or stand up. So getting dropped out of every corner and not being able to break with one hand made it hard to descend."

X-rays on Monday morning showed "two breaks, maybe three in my right hand. But one of the breaks goes through the joint, this is the major problem I have been told, otherwise I would continue, but the doc says no way."

On Monday afternoon the team announced that he had broken the ring finger and little finger on his right hand and will be operated on this week in Freiburg.