Steff Cras in desbelief after miserable hospital care in Spain: "Our doctor had to open everything again and clean it"

Steff Cras was one of the main victims of the mass fall at Itzulia Basque Country. It is a miracle that he made it to the Tour de France, because just like Jonas Vingegaard, he had a collapsed lung, among multiple other injuries. The TotalEnergies rider recently made his return at the Tour of Slovenia, where he surprisingly finished ninth - enough to convince his team to give him a shot at the Tour.

In conversation with Het Nieuwsblad, he looks back on his heavy fall in Basque Country. After the fall he was taken to a small hospital and the same day he was admitted to a larger hospital in San Sebastián. "The doctor from our team came by in San Sebastián."

Cras won't take away the best memories of the first treatment in Basque Country. "The initial wound care was - to put it mildly - not optimal. Just a bandage with some product. The stitches were also not great at all. Our doctor had to open everything again and clean it. There were still many stones in it."

Naturally, the team doctor couldn't afford to stick around in Spain for too long. Thus it was up to Cras' wife to take care of the Belgian in first days and weeks of recovery process. "The doctor left a bag with products and my wife Elien played nurse for five days. Fortunately, because the level of the real nurses in the hospital was not great either."