Tejay van Garderen Drops Out of the Tour de France
Tejay van Garderen has dropped out of the 2019 Tour de France.
The American broke his left hand in a crash after running into a median on Friday’s Stage 7.
Though van Garderen finished the stage, an X-ray later revealed a fracture at the base of the 30-year-old’s thumb.
Tejay van Garderen, one of only four Americans riding in this year’s Tour de France, has dropped out of the race, his EF Education First team announced on Friday.
The news came after van Garderen crashed on Stage 7 and broke a bone in his left hand. Doctors diagnosed the fracture—found at the base of his thumb—after the stage finish in Chalon-sur-Saône.
“I have no one to blame but myself, and I really hope that no one else got hurt because of me,” van Garderen said in a team statement.
The 30-year-old hit a traffic island 7K into the longest stage of the 2019 Tour. After a medical inspection, he remounted his bike with blood running down his face and completed the 230K ride.
“The crash was a result of a personal error,” van Garderen said. “I was looking down at my bike because I saw something caught up in it, like a piece of paper, so I was looking down and I hit a median.”
After the finish, van Garderen had an X-ray that showed a broken first metacarpal in his left thumb.
“We’re not only concerned about Tejay doing lasting damage to the fractured bone if he were to continue riding, but we are also concerned for the safety of others,” said Jonathan Vaughters, general manager of the American team. “Full use of your hand is important when racing alongside 180 riders.”
Van Garderen, who placed fifth in the Tour in 2012 and 2014, had been riding in support of teammates Rigoberto Uran and Michael Woods.
“All I’m thinking about now is the disappointment, less for myself and more for the team,” he said. “Rigo and Woods, they both have a big chance to podium, to win stages, even to win the whole damn Tour. I would have loved to have been a part of that.”
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