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Germany’s Florian Lipowitz, 5th overall and Remco Evenepoel’s teammate at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, crashed in a corner this Tuesday and abandoned the Tour. He has a fracture of the right collarbone.
After Jonas Vingegaard on Sunday (right collarbone), the Tour lost another of its big names this Tuesday. Germany’s Florian Lipowitz, 5th overall before the start of the time trial, crashed a little more than 6 kilometers from the finish, in a right-hand corner where Tadej Pogacar also nearly went down. At the end of the descent, not his favorite exercise, the third-place finisher at the 2025 Tour seemed slightly bothered by a small dip in the middle of the road and, coming in too fast to take the inside line as he wanted, slid out on his front wheel.
After skidding for a few meters, he hit the curb, right collarbone first, and never got back up, while in the “hot seat” for the provisional best time, his teammate Mattia Cattaneo grimaced. Tests carried out immediately afterward unsurprisingly revealed a collarbone fracture, which will sideline him for three to four weeks. It is his first abandonment in a stage race since the 2024 Giro (did not start Stage 6).
Remco Evenepoel
“He’s going to be missed a lot, by me and by the team”
“It’s sad to see him like that. We’re happy about Remco’s win, but losing ‘Lipo’ is a big blow,” said Klaas Lodewyck, one of his sports directors at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, who was then behind Evenepoel’s car and chose not to tell the Belgian “so as not to create panic.” The three-time world time trial champion only learned the news at the finish, after his stage win was confirmed. “A very sad moment,” he regretted. “Sad for the rider himself, because as I said after Jonas’s abandonment, it’s long periods of sacrifice, training camps, the Tour of Slovenia(won by Lipowitz in June)... He’s one of the best climbers in the world, he was having an excellent Tour de France (5th at 6'48'') and he would have been very important for the team in the stages to come. It’s really a huge loss for us. He’s going to be missed a lot, by me and by the team.”
There was still an intriguing piece in the battle for the podium
The 25-year-old German, who was putting in a solid time trial before his crash (4th at the third intermediate, seven seconds ahead of Paul Seixas), was the German team’s co-leader, and while the hierarchy seemed to be settling between him and Evenepoel, now Tadej Pogacar’s runner-up, he remained an intriguing piece in the battle for the podium — a rider who could either go up the road to unsettle Seixas or Del Toro, or sit on wheels as he did last Sunday toward the Plateau de Solaison (5th behind Seixas). “We’ve lost a man, so we’ll have to rebuild a strategy with one fewer rider, especially since he was one of our two leaders — it’s a big loss,” insisted Patxi Vila, the other sports director. “It’s a bit early to think about another plan, but obviously, it’s not ideal.”
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