Soudal - Quick-Step CEO doubts Giro organization to prevent Mikel Landa's fall: "With a simple ski net, the injuries would probably have been less serious"

The Soudal - Quick-Step arrived to Giro d'Italia with primary goal of fighting for general classification with Mikel Landa. However the Basque didn't even finish the opening stage after a hard fall with five kilometers to go. Long recovery from fractured vertebrae means a heavy blow for the 35-year-old who had big goals for this summer.

"It hit me hard, the team hard and first and foremost Mikel himself: a top professional who faces a long rehabilitation due to the broken vertebra," Soudal - Quick-Step CEO Jurgen Foré tells HLN about the abandon of Landa. "He was our GC man in this Giro. Because of his fall we miss a lot of potential UCI points and publicity return for the sponsors."

"Falls cannot always be avoided, but I want everything to be done to minimize the consequences of such a fall."

Is the organization to blame for the fall? "Not about the fall itself. Mikel told me from the hospital in Albania that he was riding on the right side of the road and the rider to his left swerved to the right, so that Mikel had no choice but to end up next to the road... In professional cycling that is called a racing incident, but the consequences of the fall and how to reduce or avoid it, do concern me."

The technical chicane was clearly a pinch point where falls could easily happen even in the reduced peloton. Yet it would've been quite easy for the organizers to secure this section and prevent riders from sliding all the way down onto local driveway, Foré points out.

"Mikel slid over a concrete edge after his fall. With a simple ski net, which shields this zone, the injuries would probably have been less. In the Flemish races, these points are now better protected, I hope that this will be the norm everywhere in the future."

Landa was due to ride also the Tour de France this summer as domestique for hot favourite Remco Evenepoel, but that now seems off the table. "If Mikel can't ride the Tour, that's a shame, but we will recover some other strong riders for the Tour," Foré refers to Valentin Paret-Peintre who couldn't be at the start of Giro, but Tour could be possible for him. "He has already proven at his previous team for Ben O'Connor that he can be of service in the high mountains."

"Matteo Cattaneo, Ilan Van Wilder, Max Schachmann and Mauri Vansevenant can also go a long way uphill. Dries Van Gestel will normally have recovered from the broken wrist and elbow. He can be the rider in the Tour to keep Remco out of the wind on the flat. We have already seen ten (of our) riders drop out with fractures this year. Safety remains an important issue in cycling."