Tour De France: Armstrong Injured in Crash

A close encounter with the Tarmac was probably the last thing Lance Armstrong would have wanted in the final count-down to his attempt to win the Tour de France for a seventh time, but the Texan revealed yesterday that he had fallen in training last week and was left with a black eye, a broken helmet and road rash.

The "silly crash", as Armstrong described it, happened last Wednesday as he left Nice for a training ride on his time-trial bike. There are climbs near the French city where he has established times going back to 1998 so that he can compare his form year by year. These would be the final tests of his fitness before the Tour starts on Saturday.

"The unfortunate thing is I hit my head which cracked the helmet in two," said the Texan. He added that he had been riding slowly, but if the impact was sufficient to break a helmet the implication is that he may still have fallen heavily.

"It wasn't that serious and nothing was wrong - no
breaks, no stitches...[just] road rash and a little
beat up," the 33-year-old added. "Fortunately I haven't felt any ill effects from the crash in terms of...pedalling. I feel I'm just as fluid as I was before. I feel very good on the bike and I'd even venture to say I feel better than I've ever felt."

Even so, one thing should be borne in mind: the
intense game of cat and mouse which Tour de France favourites play with one another through the media during the build-up to the race means that any incident that happens to a Tour contender will always be played down to keep the opposition guessing.

The crash will have had some effects as Armstrong builds up to his three-week swansong, after which he will retire from professional cycling. Though the visible effects of a smash are clear, in terms of cuts and scarring, muscular damage such as whiplash, and loss of sleep and training time, are always hard to quantify and may be felt only in the longer term.

This is not the first time that Armstrong has crashed in training during his build-up for the Tour, although it does not sound as serious as his smash in May 2000 when a front tyre blew out at speed on a mountain descent in the Pyrenees.

On that occasion he also fell on his head, suffering two black eyes and cuts to his face. Like this training crash, the news took a little time to emerge. Those seeking omens should note that he also won the Tour by a country mile.