Romain Bardet, injured, at the finish of the 13th stage of the Tour de France, September 11, 2020. -

Stuart Franklin / POOL / AFP

It was one of the images of the crazy day of Friday on the roads of Auvergne.

Romain Bardet on the ground, completely stunned, 90 km from the finish.

The leader of AG2R La Mondiale had left, and if he had conceded time to the other favorites, had defended rather well in Puy Mary.

But the news fell in the evening: Bardet, victim of a concussion, had to abandon the Tour de France.

Its sports director, Vincent Lavenu, returned to this episode this Saturday at the microphone of France Televisions.

Should he have left after this fall?

“All the runners, and Romain is one of them, when they fall, have only one thing in mind, and that is to start again.

The match does not stop, the peloton continues and the riders' first instinct is to start again, even if it seemed that Romain had had a little absence, after very quickly, everything was reassuring.

"

Vincent Lavenu, manager of AG2R La Mondiale, talks about the fall, the taking charge and then the abandonment of its leader Romain Bardet # TDF2020



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- France tv sport (@francetvsport) September 12, 2020

Lavenu then explained what happened in the evening: “We realized that he had troubles, which made us decide to bring Romain to the Clermont University Hospital.

A CT scan was performed and showed that there was no damage to the brain but that the disorders were significant enough to make the decision to stop Romain.

Obviously, it's still quite worrying, the trauma is present, but there is no danger for the future.

It takes a little rest for him to recover.

"

A concussion protocol in the bike?

The question of a possible concussion protocol obviously arises in order to protect the runners.

We know that rugby has evolved a lot in this area in recent years, for example.

For Dr Paul-Henri Jost, who examined Bardet on the road on Friday, it seems very complicated.

"It is difficult to apply to cycling, because it would require that we stop the runners at each fall," he said, still for France TV.

The doctor explained how the decision was taken to let the Frenchman continue to ride: “20 minutes after his fall, when he comes back towards us, he is very lucid, he does not present neurological disorders, so we are reassured.

If these elements had not been present, it would have been our role to alert the sporting director, or even to stop the rider, of course.

We are trying to detect if there are neurological signs of seriousness.

This was not the case with Romain.

"

"The concussion protocol is very difficult to apply to cycling"



Paul-Henri Jost, the doctor who was with Romain Bardet when he fell yesterday, looks back on this episode # TDF2020



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- France tv sport (@francetvsport) September 12, 2020

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