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Throughout this Tour de France, longtime cycling journalist John Wilcockson is writing about the riders who have to abandon the race: The Lost Boys. Today, he examines the plight of star sprinters Fabio Jakobsen and Caleb Ewan.
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No one wants to quit the Tour de France, but when injuries, sickness or fatigue sap a rider’s strength or morale he doesn’t have much choice. That was the case this second week of the Tour for renowned bunch sprinters Fabio Jakobsen and Caleb Ewan—both of whom were battling the time cut on tough stages and who knew that the Alps were on the horizon.
Jakobsen of Soudal-Quick-Step decided not to start stage 12 and Ewan of the other Belgian squad, Lotto-Dstny, simply rode until there was no hope for him on stage 13.
Critical to their departures were two (unexpectedly) no-holds-barred days of racing, stages 10 and 12, both of which featured roller-coaster terrain in temperatures that reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
After the first of those stages, French battler Thibaut Pinot said, “It was an attrition race, and I was just dead. There were riders all over the place at the start…this day will take its toll.”
Belgian racer Victor Campenaerts of Lotto-Dstny was even more explicit about the challenges when he spoke after stage 12, saying, “Two days ago, it was one of the hardest stages I’ve ever done, and a lot of the riders agreed it was one of the hardest stages of everybody’s career. I think a lot of the same riders will now agree that this one was even harder.”
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In the grueling stage 10 over the non-stop hills of the Massif Central, Ewan and Jakobsen lost contact on the opening climb with 160 kilometers still to race. Two men from each of their teams dropped back to help them and stayed with them to the finish in Issoire, where they were 34 minutes behind stage winner Pello Bilbao and even 10 minutes behind the gruppetto featuring most of the other sprinters.
The next day, much of the peloton’s tempo riding to neutralize the stage 11 breakaway was performed by the Soudal-Quick-Step and Lotto-Dstny teams—but the result of the field sprint at Moulins was disappointing for both: 15th place for Ewan, 16th for Jakobsen.
Jakobsen’s woes began back on stage 4 with his high-speed crash at the Nogaro speedway finish when he collided with Lotto-Dstny’s Jacopo Guarnieri—who broke his collarbone.
“The crash of Fabio was a hard one,” said his sports director Tom Steels, himself a former bunch sprinter. “The bike was in three pieces, so he really went down hard…but Fabio is a real fighter.”
Jakobsen showed that fighting spirit on the toughest stage through the Pyrénées, saying, “From the first climb I began feeling that the legs were so sore and stiff that I just couldn’t follow the pace.”
His teammates helped him get through that test and the following ones in the Massif Central—until this Dutch warrior finally called a halt after another poor sprint finish.
Explaining his lack of speed, Jakobsen said, “When the sprint started, I had to stay on the saddle and let them go.” In his farewell message, he said, “I am not recovering, and my body is not healing from the crash. I’m very sad to leave the Grande Boucle, because I had big goals for this race and wanted to be at my best with the team.”
No one would doubt those words, because Jakobsen has spent all six of his pro seasons with Quick-Step, scoring 43 victories for the team. That’s an impressive total, but it would be much greater had he not endured the horrendous crash on the opening stage of the 2020 Tour de Pologne that was shown repeatedly in the recent “Tour de France: Unchained” documentary on Netflix.
That crash almost took Jakobsen’s life and it puts into perspective his continued quest to seek success in this unremittingly challenging sport.
Indeed his current injuries seem minor compared with those he listed in an interview given to the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad two and a half years ago.
Jakobsen revealed: “My injuries included brain contusion, skull fractured, nose broken, palate broken and torn, 10 teeth gone, parts of my upper and lower jaws gone, cuts in my face, a big cut in my outer ear, broken thumb, shoulder contusion, lung contusion, the nerve of my vocal cord took a blow, heavily bruised buttocks…there’s 80 stitches in my palate alone.
“They have taken bone tissue from the pelvis and put it in my jaw. … I’d rather race three Vueltas back to back than spend another day in intensive care.”
Talking about that crash’s immediate aftermath, Jakobsen said he was saved by his teammate Florian Sénéchal. “Florian noticed I was choking in my own blood. I was unable to move,” he said. “He saw the panic in my eyes. In a reflex he lifted my head a little so that the blood could pour from my mouth and throat. The UCI official I crashed into basically acted as a human shock absorber.
“If he hadn’t been there, I would have hit the finish barrier hard and probably wouldn’t have been here today to tell the tale.” [That race official sustained several broken ribs but recovered well.]
Earlier this year, Jakobsen added, “I lost 10 kilos [22 pounds] of body weight—you could say fat, muscle and some teeth. So, the first goal was to just become a normal man again. [At the races], I had to really overcome that fear to re-enter the final [of a bunch sprint] and be there, where the danger can happen and where you can be scared or fearful.”
It’s amazing that Jakobsen, 26, has overcome that fear and was looking competitive in this Tour until the stage 4 crash. Ewan, the 29-year-old Aussie, also began the Tour well, with third and second places in the first two bunch sprints. But being dropped in the mountains and on later hilly stages proved his undoing.
Speaking about Ewan to Australian television after stage 13 to the Grand Colombier, his Lotto-Dstny team director Stéphane Heulot said: “Yesterday [on the rugged stage to Belleville-en-Beaujolais], he spoke about giving up. We tried to motivate him, but I guess it was a problem in the legs. And today he wasn’t in good shape or a good mentality.”
Indeed, low morale and bad legs can translate to just one outcome: It’s time to quit.
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THE LOST BOYS
Stage 1: Enric Mas (Movistar Team), DNF
Stage 2: Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), DNS
Stage 5: Jacopo Guarnieri (Lotto-Dstny), DNS; Luis León Sánchez (Astana Qazaqstan), DNS
Stage 8: Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan), DNF; Steff Cras (TotalEnergies), DNF
Stage 9: Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek), DNS
Stage 12: Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-Quick-Step), DNS; David de la Cruz (Astana Qazaqstan), DNF
Stage 13: Caleb Ewan (Lotto Dstyny), DNF; Ben Turner (INEOS Grenadiers), DNF
Stage 14: Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Circuit-Wanty), DNF; Esteban Chaves (EF Education EasyPost), DNF; Antonio Pedrero (Movistar Team), DNF
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July 15, 2023 at 08:06PM
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The Lost Boys: Caleb Ewan and Fabio Jakobsen lose fight to survive grueling Tour de France - Outside Magazine
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