Hincapie reports clavicle fracture

By Charles Pelkey

American Tour de France veteran George Hincapie said Tuesday that the collarbone injury he suffered in the 17th stage of this year’s Tour was indeed a fracture.

Hincapie told VeloNews that he opted not to have the injury examined by doctors until after the Tour because “I really wanted to finish.”

After a doctor’s visit, Hincapie announced the diagnosis on his Twitter page Tuesday morning.

“Got some bad news this am,” Hincapie wrote. ”X ray confirmed my collar bone is broken.”

Hincapie was part of a 22-man escape on the 169km stage from Bourg Saint-Maurice to Le Grand-Bornand when he crashed late in the race.

He finished the stage and four more, including a 40km time trial and the stage 20 race to the top of Mont Ventoux, before completing his 14th Tour on Sunday.

“It did hurt,” Hincapie said in a telephone interview from his home in Spain. “It was really bad in the mornings when I woke up … and, on the bike, it would hurt whenever I hit any kind of bump in the road.”

While the race’s final stage into Paris is traditionally an opportunity for rest and celebration, Hincapie and his Columbia teammates were intent upon delivering Mark Cavendish to the line on the Champs-Élysées for the sprinter’s sixth stage win of the 2009 Tour.

But the streets of the Champs-Élysées are cobbled, which caused Hincapie “a lot of pain.”

“With seven laps (of the 6.5km circuit) to go, it was really hurting a lot,” he said. “But on the last lap, I was fired up and I didn’t notice it all that much.”

Hincapie launched a powerful final-kilometer charge for teammate Mark Renshaw, who then delivered a stunning lead-out for Cavendish, who won the prestigious finale with Renshaw second and third-placed Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) several bike lengths back.

Hincapie said the broken clavicle will probably cause him to miss a few races that had been on his schedule.

“I’ll probably head back home (to the U.S.) and see what races I can and cannot do,” he said.

Hincapie said he still hopes to compete in the USA Cycling Professional Road Racing Championships, scheduled August 29-30 in Greenville, South Carolina.

“I am going to get a second opinion, but at this point, I think I am going to let it heal naturally and not get surgery,” he said. “If I do get surgery, I can probably ride again in two weeks. If I don’t it will probably be four weeks.”

Hincapie, whose contract with Columbia-HST expires at year’s end, said he is also “just trying figure out” what his plans might be.

“At this point, though, I’m not ready to say anything about that yet,” he added.

FILED UNDER: News / Road / Tour de France TAGS: Tour de France