 |
|
||
 |
|||
 |
 |
 |
   | 
| |||||||||||||||||||||
Boonen quits Tour with knee injury
 Boonen's crash on Wednesday was his third in this year's Tour BRIANCON, France -- Sprint leader Tom Boonen has pulled out of the Tour de France after crashing in Wednesday's 12th stage and the Belgian's green jersey goes to Norway's Thor Hushovd. Boonen, who completed a rare double by winning the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in the spring classics, had won two stages in the first week of this year's Tour. The 24-year-old tested his swollen right knee, injured in a high-speed downhill crash on Wednesday, before deciding that he could not carry on. "I tried to go on the rollers this morning but it was too much, I couldn't even walk," he said. He burst a blood vessel under his kneecap in Wednesday's crash and had 80 centiltres of blood drawn from his knee on Thursday morning. "That's like two cans of coke, he said. He has had three crashes since the tour started and said: "If I hadn't had so much bad luck in the first week I would have been 100 points ahead of everybody. "There's a lot of Belgians here and it would have been great to have given them the green jersey, but I'll come back stronger next year." Boonen crashed at the last turn in the sprint to the line in the seventh stage from Luneville to Karlsruhe in Germany on Friday, finishing seventh while his chief rival, Australia's Robbie McEwen, notched up a second stage win. Wednesday's crash proved one too many and he had struggled to finish the stage from Courchevel to Briancon, featuring three gruelling climbs. "What I've done today is more beautiful that what I did in the Tour of Flanders and in Paris-Roubaix," he told L'Equipe after Wednesday's stage. "I felt strong pain in my right knee and I thought it was over. I managed to lift myself up but every kilometer was a victory. "Three crashes in five days is too much". Beltran pulls outSpaniard Manuel Beltran, one of the numerous team riders supposed to set the pace for Lance Armstrong in the mountains, also pulled out on Thursday. Beltran fell on the Col des Demoiselles Coiffees climb early in the 187-kilometer route from Briancon to Digne-les-Bains. He got back on his bike but quit after receiving treatment from a Tour doctor, Discovery Channel team spokesman Jogi Muller said. Muller added that Beltran may have suffered concussion and had been taken to the hospital for further tests. Beltran, 34, is a specialist mountain climber and will be missed by Armstrong when the race heads into the Pyrenees on Saturday. He has been part of the American's Tour-winning team since 2003. Earlier in the day Frenchman Nicolas Fritsch, who rides for the Spanish Saunier Duval team, pulled out after starting the stage. 
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
| © 2007 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. Site Map. |
|
External sites open in new window; not endorsed by CNN.com
Pay service with live and archived video. 
