PAU, France — The yellow jersey sat on the ground in the middle of a Tourmalet corner, hunched over, and put his hands on his head in that universal physical expression of "what have I done?"
A moment's inattention on a descent is all it took. Uno-X Mobility teammate Anders Halland Johannessen took the normal racing line into one of the Tourmalet's many switchbacks: a late brake point, start wide, cut in, end wide. The cut-in on this particular left hander seemed to surprise race leader Torstein Træen, who didn't flick his front wheel toward the apex at the same time. A touch of wheels, a high-side, and the yellow jersey tumbled onto his head and shoulder and side. A broken rib and injuries to the shoulder and elbow, the medical report said that afternoon. A concussion, the team said later that evening. There will be no more Tour de France for Torstein Træen.
Træen is a very good bike racer. At the Vuelta a España last year he finished 9th after taking the race lead in strikingly similar circumstances early in the race. For the next two weeks, he was in and amongst some of the best GC names on the planet, proving he can push himself over a Grand Tour. There was every reason to suspect he would do the same here, at the Tour, and maximize the more than seven minutes he gained over Tadej Pogačar and the rest of the race's favorites.
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