Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-Farnese Vini) was last man standing at the end of today’s Tour de Suisse stage, as he was virtually the only major sprinter in the race to avoid the finishing straight crash. The incident happened in the middle of the road as Mark Cavendish (HTC-Columbia) and Heinrich Haussler (Cervélo TestTeam) came together at speeds of around 60kph; “Ale-Jet” had chosen his own path to the line though and so managed to pass it by unscathed.
Gerald Ciolek (Milram), Tom Boonen (Quick Step) and Lloyd Mondory (AG2R-La Mondiale) also came down in the incident. Oscar Freire (Rabobank) and Robbie McEwen (Katusha) managed to stay upright but both had to use their brakes, costing them any chance of victory.
"I got the victory at the end of a crazy finish to the race,” said Petacchi afterwards, “characterised by the bad crash. I chose the right side of the road for my sprint and it was really the right side, since he allowed me to avoid the crash.”
The Italian, who famously avoids a lot of the combative practices common among the sport’s fast men for far of crashing himself, saw and heard the incident unfolding beside him. “I was turning my head sometimes in order to look at my opponents on the other side,” he explained, “and suddenly I saw a strange movement and I heard a strong sound of crash. I went on pedalling and I won.
“I don't know if I could have won even without the crash, but I'm sorry that Cavendish, Haussler and Ciolek could not compete until the finish line. Anyway, I lived a very unlucky period until now, today I had good luck".
Picking the right wheel to follow in a sprint is often one of the most decisive factors in determining your finishing position. Choose wrongly and you can be boxed in when faster riders accelerate, or blocked when the rider in front of you sits up. For Danish champion Matti Breschel (Saxo Bank) though, choosing the wheel of Petacchi gave him a result that he could never have expected.
”It was a crazy finale and I'm happier avoiding a close encounter with the asphalt than I am about finishing second,” said Breschel. “Naturally, I would never have finished second if the crash didn't happen but I would have finished in the top five.
“However,” he continued, “the stage and the finale showed me that the shape is coming along after a long break from racing and finishing with the best sprinters today, gives me great confidence.”