In 2020 he was pushed into the barrier during the Tour of Poland and was in an artificial coma, now the Dutchman Fabio Jakobsen takes the day’s victory in the second stage of the tour. The yellow jersey goes to Belgian Wout van Aert.
Almost two years after his terrible fall, Fabio Jakobsen wrote his own cycling fairy tale and won the second stage of the 109th Tour de France. The Dutchman won the sprint in Nyborg on Saturday ahead of Belgian Wout van Aert, who took over the yellow jersey from the overall leader. The finale of the stage was overshadowed by a mass crash that also stopped defending champion Tadej Pogacar. However, since this happened within the last three kilometers, the Slovenian received the same time as the day’s winner. After Yves Lampaert’s opening win, the Belgian team QuickStep-AlphaVinyl celebrated their second win of the day. Due to the time credit for van Aert, however, Lampaert lost the yellow jersey and is second, one second behind.
But Jakobsen’s stage win made up for everything. Two years ago, the Dutchman’s career seemed over. After a bad fall in the Tour of Poland, when he was pushed into the balustrades by his compatriot Dylan Groenewegen, Jakobsen was in an artificial coma for a while and had to undergo several surgeries. After the fall, he only had one tooth of his own and had to have 130 stitches in his face. “It’s incredible. It’s been a long process. A lot of people have helped me come back. Today I paid them something back. It’s a fantastic day. I’ve dreamed of this for 15 years,” said the Dutchman.
Fabio Jakobsen, left, is pushed into the gang in August 2020.
(Photo: Tomasz Markowski / AP)
The best German was Max Walscheid in twelfth place. “There were a lot of tight situations, I touched the brakes more than once. The track was okay, the wind was very much ahead. So everyone was still there. That made it very unorganized and hectic,” said Walscheid. Although 202.2 kilometers had to be covered between Roskilde and Nyborg, the main topic in the peloton over the past few days was the final. There the cyclists had to cross the 18-kilometre-long bridge over the Great Belt, fear of wind crests was great. Tour director Christian Prudhomme only decided on Saturday morning which side of the bridge the field should be led over.
As on Friday in Copenhagen, several hundred thousand spectators lined the route around the festival city of Roskilde. The Dane Magnus Cort insisted and pulled away from the field with the Norwegian Sven Erik Byström. The tour organizers found three smaller hills on the Danish main island of Zealand. Cort crossed them all first, thus securing the first mountain jersey of this tour. About 45 kilometers before the finish, Cort’s escape was over, Byström was caught shortly afterwards – and the final on the Great Belt began.
The opening winner of this year’s tour fell on the bridge
However, it wasn’t the wind that caused the excitement, but the nervousness in the field. After only a few hundred meters on the bridge, Lampaert, the winner of the opening round, was involved in a fall. Only four kilometers later, with the support of two helpers, Lampaert managed to catch up to the field, which was reduced to around 100 riders. Headwinds then prevailed on the second part of the connection across the Great Belt, which neutralized all attacks and finally led to the sprint final.
Meanwhile, the corona virus continues to cause nervousness in the field. Ironically, several cases were reported by Lampaert’s QuickStep-AlphaVinyl team. The sporting director Tom Steels was just as corona positive as the press spokesman. Overall, the number of cases in the Belgian team’s staff has risen to seven within a week. Tim Declerq, who had to travel home shortly before the Grand Départ in Copenhagen, was the only driver to have been hit so far.
