A bad crash in the time trial at Tirreno-Adriatico left Linus Gerdemann (High Road) with a broken femur. He told radsport-news.com that he will have surgery on Monday, in Innsbruck/Austria and is likely out of competition for six weeks. This may also dampen his hopes for the Tour de France.
He said that "when I checked out the course beforehand, I thought I could ride it on the handle bar [in the time trial position - ed.] I was going about 60km/h and somehow slipped."
Doubly bad luck for Gerdemann was fact that he seemed to be en route to winning the race. "Based on the intermediate times I probably would have finished second to Cancellara. That would have been enough for overall victory. And that without real preparation." Gerdemann had a 30-second lead over Cancellara going into the time trial. Eventual runner-up, David Zabriskie (Slipstream Chipotle - H30) ended the race 22 seconds behind the Swiss rider. Gerdemann did manage to get up and finish the race, 1'16 behind Cancellara.
Tirreno-Adriatico will end on Tuesday.