The Tour de France cyclist who broke his elbows and wrists in a 60-man pile-up crash is considering suing the spectator responsible.
The Tour de France Peloton was 45km from the end of the first stage as the cyclists raced from Brest to Landerneau when German rider Tony Martin was clipped by a spectator's sign, causing multiple injuries.
The spectator responsible had been holding a sign which read "Allez Opi Omi", which is a mixture of French and German that translates to "Go Grandma Grandpa".
The Independent reports that she has now been arrested, with one of the cyclists injured, Marc Soler, saying that he is considering suing the woman.
Soler ended up coming last in the first stage of the competition following the incident and was unable to compete in the second because of the fractures to his elbows and wrist.
A fall in the Giro d'Italia had previously led him to abandon stage 12, before he went on to compete in Tour de Suisse, but in the Tour de France, his competing time was cut even shorter.
"I don't know what to do, I'm thinking of taking the spectator to court, because that's an entire Tour canned and I feel very angry," he said, per Cycling News.
"The Giro was really frustrating because it was a race I had prepared for over a long time and I had a great opportunity. But the Tour is even worse, because it wasn't just a race incident, it was because of a spectator who obviously doesn't like cycling. All that preparation has gone into the bin," Soler said.
"The fall happened at a point in the race where the road narrowed and we were trying to be well-placed, we were near the front and then I saw all the Jumbo-Visma riders going down and [Mike] Teunissen crashed right in front of me. I went flying, somersaulted and landed hard on my hands. They both hurt, and so did my face where my glasses had broken and my shoulder too. I tried to get up but I couldn't, I didn't have any strength in my arms," he added.
The crash did not just injure Soler, although he was one of the worst affected alongside Cyril Lemoine who received four broken ribs, a head wound, and a punctured lung, and Ignatas Konovalovas, who suffered head trauma that he had to be hospitalized for.
Tour de France Deputy Director Pierre-Yves Thouault said per the AFP: "We are suing this woman who behaved so badly… we are doing this so that the tiny minority of people who do this don't spoil the show for everyone."
