Rohan Dennis was forced to withdraw from the Giro d’Italia halfway through stage 4 as a result of his crash on stage 3.
Dennis crashed in the final 10km of the stage on Sunday, landing hard on his right side and suffering a jarred neck and multiple superficial abrasions.
After the first rest day on Monday, Dennis lined up for stage 4 despite not having recovered from his injuries.
The extent of Dennis’ injuries became apparent during the stage after a fast opening hour of racing and after being dropped, Dennis withdrew 78km into the 181km stage.
BMC Racing Team doctor, Dr. Giovanni Ruffini explained the ongoing nature of Dennis’ injuries.
“After the crash on Sunday, Rohan had a strong headache but yesterday, it seemed that everything was mostly resolved. Last night, he began to experience further headaches and started to feel nauseas. Unfortunately, this morning the feelings hadn’t subsided but we made the decision for Rohan to try and make it through today’s stage. Rohan continued to feel unwell during the stage and consequently made the decision to withdraw. We have discussed internally with BMC Racing Team Chief Medical Officer Dr. Max Testa and Rohan will undergo some tests to determine whether there is an underlying issue as a result of the crash. At this stage, Rohan will take some time off the bike to recover and depending on the result of the tests, he could be back training in ten days.”
After months of hard work, Dennis is disappointed to withdraw from the centenary edition of the Giro d’Italia.
“I basically just tried to stay positive and think maybe I’ll come good. It was probably around the hour mark when I spoke to Max Sciandri in the car and I said ‘Look I’m going to try and get to the feed zone and I think that might be my limit today but we’ll see how it goes there’. But I got dropped on the long climb when the peloton was riding easy and Valerio Piva in the second race car just said ‘get in the car, it’s not worth it’.
“The wounds aren’t an issue. It was the nausea and lethargic, no energy feeling. My head had been hurting and I was hoping that some exercise would change that feeling but I started to feel worse. I’m disappointed, of course. I think I feel worse for the people who have helped me prepare. My coach came all the way from America to spend a week with me away from his family before the Tour of the Alps, to prepare for the Giro d’Italia. Those sort of things I feel bad about, even if I didn’t have any control of it. When you abandon you have the feeling it was for nothing. My priority now is to recover and get healthy, and then concentrate on the rest of the season which is far from over.”
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