Leipheimer Out Of Tour With Broken Wrist
Lance Armstrong’s Astana team-mate Levi Leipheimer has withdrawn from the Tour de France with a broken wrist, his Astana team announced on Friday.
The 35-year-old American, one of the main riders for the Astana team along with seven-time Tour winner Armstrong, 2007 Tour winner Alberto Contador and Andreas Kloeden, sustained the injury in a fall 2km from the finish line of Thursday’s 12th stage.
He crossed the line at the back of the peloton but still sat in fourth spot in the Tour’s general classification overnight.
“I am obviously very disappointed,” said Leipheimer, who was set to have an operation on Friday.
“My wrist hurts a lot, but I think it doesn’t compare to the pain of watching the Tour leave me behind and not being able to ride with my team-mates.
“We have had a big battle so far and we are the favourites, I wanted to be part of that.”
The Californian, who was also left with bruising to the right side of his back and road rashes on his right shoulder, lower back and hip, went to hospital earlier Friday to undergo an x-ray which confirmed a broken wrist.
“I will have an operation later today, I broke the scaphoid bone and I need to get a screw put in it,” said the American.
“My season was almost over after the Tour, I am told the recovery takes a while, it can be a while.
“Maybe I will do the Tour of Missouri at the end of the year.”
Leipheimer was a “domestique deluxe” for Astana, whose main task was chasing down breakaways and helping his high-profile team-mates tackle the tough mountain stages, which crucially begin this weekend in the Alps.
“He was in solid contention for the race, so it’s a real shame,” said team-mate Armstrong.
“It can’t help, but have an effect.
“It’s tough, we have to move on and re-focus, but he is a good friend of mine and it makes it even more unfortunate.”
Astana team manager Johan Bruyneel hinted there might be a change in team tactics, but refused to add further details.
“It’s definitely not a good thing this has happened,” Bruyneel acknowledged.
“After the crash, I thought there might be something.
“You hope there won’t be and in the first instance we didn’t think there was something broken.
“But he had a fairly bad night and we took him to hospital and saw the fracture.
“Obviously he’s out and that changes a lot for us. He was in fourth place and could have potentially won the Tour.
“We’ve lost an important option and this will motivate other teams to attack us.”
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