Filippo Ganna abandons Tour de France after stage 1 crash
The Italian is the first rider to abandon the 2025 Tour de France after he was a faller on stage 1 around Lille. He had been among the favourites to win the stage 5 time trial to Caen.
Filippo Ganna has become the first rider to abandon the 2025 Tour de France following his crash with 132km remaining on stage 1.
The Italian was involved in a crash with Sean Flynn (Picnic PostNL), the duo colliding as the peloton squeezed on the approach to a central reservation. Ganna remounted and continued, but the pain proved to be too significant and he was forced to call a premature end to his Tour de France after he was definitively distanced on Mont Cassel with just under 70km remaining.
It marks a major blow for the British team, who lose one of their key riders both in support of Carlos Rodríguez’s GC bid and in the hunt for stage victories. Ganna had targeted the individual time trial in Caen on stage 5 as an opportunity to take a first Tour stage win.
Directeur sportif Zak Dempster explained that Ganna had initially been cleared to race after passing the concussion protocol, but the decision was taken by the team to pull him from the race when he started to experience symptoms of concussion.
"We got a message saying he had the all-clear so off he went but then he started presenting some symptoms," Dempster said. "Although it’s disappointing, the guy’s health has to come first. We know enough about concussion to know it’s serious stuff, so there’s no question but that we had to pull him out."
Shortly afterwards, Stefan Bissegger (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) became the second rider to abandon the Tour. The Swiss rider was a faller with 128km remaining. He rejoined the race after undergoing the concussion protocol check, but he was forced to abandon the Tour in the final hour of racing.
