Tour de France crashes

01

Death of Tom Simpson

'Put me back on my bike' — Simpson's last request on Mont Ventoux, 1967. Amphetamines and brandy were found in his jersey pocket. The Tour rode past his corpse to finish.

02

Fabio Casartelli

Olympic champion Fabio Casartelli, 24, hit a concrete bollard at 88 km/h on the Col de Portet d'Aspet in 1995 — without a helmet. His teammates rode the next stage in silence, no one sprinting.

03

Djamolidine Abdoujaparov

Abdoujaparov was metres from a Paris stage win, green jersey on his back, when he hit a Coca-Cola advertising barrier on the Champs-Élysées and somersaulted into the tarmac. He still finished — and kept the jersey.

04

Col de Portet d'Aspet

One descent on the Col de Portet d'Aspet killed Casartelli and a stone memorial marks the exact concrete block that ended him. Riders cross it every Tour, sometimes placing a hand on the monument.

05

1995 Tour de France

In 1995, Casartelli's skull cracked on a roadside concrete block during stage 15; he was dead before the helicopter landed. The race continued. Miguel Induráin won overall in silence.

06

Luis Ocaña

Ocaña led Eddy Merckx by 9 minutes — the greatest gap in Tour history — when a Pyrenean thunderstorm dissolved the road under him in 1971. He crashed; Merckx refused to wear yellow the next day.

07

Mont Ventoux

Mont Ventoux's summit is bare white limestone — no trees, no shade above 1,800 metres. Simpson died here in 1967; Chris Froome ran up it on foot in 2016 after his bike shattered on a crash.

08

Abandonment (cycling)

To abandon the Tour de France, a rider must formally sign a document — sometimes in a hospital bed, sometimes by the roadside in a ditch. The signature closes the door on years of preparation.

09

Crash net (cycling)

After riders ploughed into spectators at sprint finishes, organisers trialled temporary mesh crash nets along barriers. The nets absorb a rider at 70 km/h — tested on dummies before human use.