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House broken into, car stolen, time trial crash - Tour de France rider's day to forget

Lotto-Soudal's Tony Gallopin's race hasn't got off to best of starts - and he's riding today with heavily swollen foot...

Next time you think you’re having a bad day, spare a thought for what Lotto-Belisol’s Tony Gallopin went through yesterday.

The opening day of the Tour de France in Düsseldorf had already got off to the worst of starts for the French rider when he learnt that his house had been broken into and his car stolen.

Then, the 29-year-old was among the riders who crashed on rain-soaked roads during the opening time trial, won by Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas.

Unlike Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde and Jon Izagirre of Bahrain Merida, whose crashes yesterday ended their races before they had barely begun, Gallopin took to the start of today’s Stage 2 to Liege.

But he did so with a heavily strapped foot and ankle which will make for some agonising pedalling over the next few days, with the swelling in his foot clearly shown in this picture he tweeted yesterday.

“Today’s problem,” he wrote, “getting my foot in my shoe,” adding his thanks to the team staff for their treatment.

Gallopin’s wife, Marion Rousse, is also working on the Tour de France – having retired from the Lotto-Soudal Ladies team, she is now a pundit with France TV.

Back in 2014, before they were married, the pair featured in an animation which showed them making a date in Paris at the end of that year’s Tour de France, where Gallopin had spent a day in the yellow jersey as race leader and with Rousse riding in the women’s race in the French capital the day the Tour finished.

> Video: TdF leader Tony Gallopin and girlfriend Marion Rousse have a date in Paris

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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3 comments

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SevenHills | 7 years ago
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Sounds like if he didn't have bad luck he would have no luck at all!

suggest he avoids black cats and walking under ladders from now on. 

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Bigtwin | 7 years ago
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Why on earth was he staying in Merseyside?

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redscouse replied to Bigtwin | 7 years ago
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Bigtwin wrote:

Why on earth was he staying in Merseyside?

Your instinctive response.. Nice one

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