MILAN (AP)—Rabobank rider Tom Slagter will leave the Giro d’Italia and return to the Netherlands once he checks out of hospital in Italy after falling during fifth stage.Rabobank said Thursday that the Dutch rider sustained a concussion, a fractured eye socket and facial injuries from the crash. He spent the night in a hospital in Orvieto.
Slagter fell backward off his bike when he tried to take a water bottle during a climb on the fifth stage on Wednesday.
He received immediate attention and was taken away in an ambulance.
The crash came amid heightened safety concerns after Belgian rider Wouter Weylandt died following a crash during a descent on Monday.
Riders have also expressed concern about the descent of Monte Crostis on the steep mountaintop finish of the Zoncolan during the 14th stage in the Dolomites.
“We have seen pictures of it and it is not fun,” HTC-Highroad rider Alex Rasmussen told Danish daily Ekstra Bladet. “There are several hundred meters of hillside, where there is no shielding of any sort and with the road leaning the wrong way.
“Racing is so dangerous. There is not just one or two but 10 men that could ride off the edge there. They’re constantly working to make the Giro as hard and extreme as possible. But this is a little too extreme.”
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