Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) pinned on his race number and finished the 249km stage to Savona in the Giro d'Italia on Wednesday, despite crashing hard just 24 hours earlier in Salsomaggiore Terme.
Farrar finished in the gruppetto in Savona, 18:14 behind winner Michael Rogers (Tinkoff-Saxo) but intends to fight on and try to finish the Giro d'Italia in Trieste on June 1.
"I'm alright. I'm a bit sore after the crash but nothing serious," he told Cyclingnews.
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The Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper quoted Alessandro Petacchi as claiming that Farrar crashed 18 times last year, suggesting there is a reason why he is often involved in crashes. Italian television also pointed the finger at Farrar, repeatedly showing replays of the crash on Tuesday.
He responded by explaining that riders hit the brakes in front of him before the vital corner in Salsomaggiore Terme. He refuted the idea that he often causes the crashes.
"I don't know about that. I've crashed a few times in this race but every time, other than yesterday, I've been falling on a pile of people who go down in front of me," he argued.
"There were a lot of crashes in the first week, with the rain and slippery roads a factor, but it wasn't like any of those were my fault. I don’t know, shit happens, I guess. We were going into the corner and they braked ahead of me. But I didn’t have room to brake, so the collision was unavoidable."
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Sprints have changed
Farrar suggested to Gazzetta dello Sport that there were more crashes because the nature of the sprints has changed in recent years.
"There isn’t one team that is capable of controlling things in the sprint as say Cipolliini's Saeco team once did or Petacchi's Fassa Bortolo team did in the past," he suggested.
"Back then the peloton was lined out by the high speed and crashes were rare. Today there are lots of teams who are able to organise a lead out train. The bunch is spread out across the road and that makes crashes more probable. That's modern cycling."
"This is also the best generation of sprinters in the history of cycling. There's people like Cavendish, Kittel, Degenkolb, Greipel, Matthews, Swift, Bouhanni, Viviani and now Nizzolo."
Despite being involved in several crashes, Farrar is determined to make it through the second half of the Giro d'Italia and will continue to chase stage victories in the sprints.
"That's the goal, that's the plan," he told Cyclingnews.
Stephen is one of the most experienced members of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. Before becoming Editor-at-large, he was Head of News at Cyclingnews. He has previously worked for Shift Active Media, Reuters and Cycling Weekly. He is a member of the Board of the Association Internationale des Journalistes du Cyclisme (AIJC).
