It's not really about "should we have twisty roads in a GT", right? It's about at which point in the tour do they come, and also about the number of riders.
Yep, I agree. I thought a bit about the crashes today rather than comment after watching them live.
Only the crash that took out Haig etc was due to course design. That run-in should not be in an early TdF stage. Fine to have a later stage, when everyone's role has already become clear, with it. But in the first week, everyone is fighting for their place, on GC, in sprints, in whatever. (And also, it would have been truly disastrous if the full pack had been involved rather than having a few chase groups coming thru later)
The physics of that left where Mohoric was drilling it practically ensured a crash unless the peloton was going 20 kmh. Any slight deviation from a line in the pack is going to cause a chain reaction of successively larger deviations until wheels or handlebars touch, or someone hits the brakes.
If that part really had to be in the stage, surely there could have been gendermes 200 meters before the turn mandating that everyone slow down. I've seen that in a few races with construction sites etc.
The earlier crashes with GT and Roglic, and Ewen's crash, were just racing incidents. They could have been prevented by the riders racing smarter, but the UCI/ASO isn't to blame.
Anyway, what on earth happened with Van Aert? Why didn't he help Roglic get back on?
It was actually unclear to me that Roglic would be able to continue, and WvA is a protected rider -- he might have contested the sprint and can take yellow in the ITT -- no point in burning him out. He's one of TJV's 2 marqee riders in any event.