Bicycle .net :: McEwen’s Belgium Curse Strikes Again, With Bozic In Lead At Tour of Belgium

McEwen’s Belgium Curse Strikes Again, With Bozic In Lead At Tour of Belgium

By editor on May 28th, 2009

KNOKKE-HEIST, Belgium, May 28, 2009 (AFP) – Australian sprint star Robbie McEwen will miss the Tour de France after undergoing leg surgery following his second crash in Belgium in the last month, his Katusha team said Thursday.

McEwen, 36, was admitted to hospital with what his team feared could be a career-threatening injury in the second stage of the Tour of Belgium.

“Robbie hit a tub of flowers and fell. He went off to hospital for analysis,” said the racer’s sporting director Jef Braeckevelt.

“I am hoping for good news but I fear a serious injury as he has an open and deep wound just above the knee,” he added.

His fears proved well-founded as team official Bart Leysen later told Italian television that the rider’s “ligaments have been strained and a tendon may have been partially torn.”

Leysen added that doctors had warned McEwen may have to quit the saddle for some four months and “fears for his career.”

A team statement reported that McEwen “cut his ligaments under his left knee and the doctors are rebuilding it, (hence) it’s almost impossible his participation at the Tour de France.”

McEwen was later said by his team to have a complex fracture of the tibia with partial torn knee ligaments.

This latest accident came weeks after the Aussie was left with concussion after a tumble in the Grand Prix de l’Escaut, also in Belgium.

That put paid to his plan to compete in the Tour of Italy, forcing him to concentrate instead on this race as preparation for the Tour de France.

The second stage was won by Slovenia’s Borut Bozic which shot him to the top of the overall lead.

The Vacansoleil rider who began the day third overall, took the leader’s black jersey from Russian Sergei Ivanov after winning a sprint to the line at Knokke-Heist in northern Belgium, ahead of Italian Alberto Ongarato and Australia’s Graeme Brown.

“I wasn’t sure if I would try the sprint because I wasn’t feeling too great,” he added. “But the team put in so much work that I had to go for it.

My teammates really gave me a good run-in,” added the 28-year-old, who picked up his first win of the season.

“The most important stage is on Saturday, in the Ardennes, which will be very difficult. But the team is strong and we are going to try and defend the leader’s jersey even if it’s going to be complicated.”

Friday’s stage features a 181.7km run from Knokke to Temse and is geared towards the sprinters.

Crash At The Finish Sprint In Belgium Stage 2