The carnage brought about by an act of madness at 70 kph. Photograph: Laurent Cipriani/Associated Press
That "idiot" that Garmin's David Miller referred to after yesterday's epic crashes turns out to have been a pair of idiots: Alessandro Petacchi and Davide Viganò. They were the pair that caused the crash that took down the majority of the Garmin team and resulted in their team-leader, Giro d'Italia champion, and loan Canadian hope, Ryder Hesjedal, to withdraw from the tour this morning.
Hesjedal can't be too disappointed thanks to that Giro win, but there was a genuine belief among his team that he could spring a surprise and do the Giro-Tour double this year. Certainly he would have been in the mix for a podium position and so it's a real shame that the opportunity to make history had to come in this fashion.
According to reports, the accident happened when Petacchi -- a veteran of the peloton who really should know better -- handed his shoe guards to Viganò while moving at a speed of 70 kph. A touch of breaks meant that Viganò couldn't reach for his and so the accident occurred. Indeed, Miller's choice of words to describe the accident, still stands and I'd love to know why the pair escaped any form of punishment. You watch Formula One and when one car causes another to exit the race due to driver error, that driver is normally punished with a drive through penalty. Given the severity of this accident and the number of riders it removed from the race, I don't think it would have been harsh to have sent Petacchi home and handed Viganò a stiff fine for he also had to abandon the race due to injuries from the crash. As it was the race allowed it to go and thus did little to encourage riders to show a little common sense when around one another in the future. At least the rest can breathe easy knowing Viganò won't be in the mix.
