2014 DNF

“I WAS IN A REALLY BAD WAY, BUT MY FORM WAS SO GOOD THAT I WAS DESPERATE TO CONTINUE”

I had a major wound in my knee where the skin had been ripped away in big chunks

This was my best year in terms of my physical condition. I was very fed up because of what happened in the 2013 Tour and that pushed me to go all out. But in sport, there are so many factors you can’t control and, because of a crash, I ended up out of the Tour. It happened on a descent. To tell the truth, my team was right at the back of the bunch and we started powering through to get to the front. I was feeling so sure of myself and once I was back up there, I stuck my hand in my jersey pocket to get an energy bar out. But it was one of those roads that sometimes have little ruts because of the impact of fallen branches and stuff. We were lined out but with riders dotted all over the road, and the guy ahead of me was maybe half a metre to the left. Then there was a rut. I was going at 80kph, and my fall was really hard. I got up and saw I had a major wound in my knee where the skin had been ripped away in big chunks – bits of it were white flesh where the brown outer skin had come off.

I started racing as hard as I could but immediately I realised that I had to stop again – it was a very serious injury and I was bleeding heavily. I got the doctor to bandage up the wound, because although I knew I was in a really bad way, my form was so good that I was desperate to keep going. Going up the climbs, oddly, was better than the descents, because as soon as I put any pressure on the tibia with my weight, it was impossible to continue.