Carnage on the Champs-Élysées! Abdou’s 1991 Crash
The Tashkent Terror's green jersey and his health in danger in Paris
Since 1975 the final stage of the Tour de France has ended on the Champs-Élysées, usually in a bunch sprint. Sunday’s coronation of Mark Cavendish in his first green points jersey and his fifth stage win of the 2011 edition seemed almost like a formality. But in 1991 the outcome of the sprint and the fate of the green jersey was in doubt because of this unbelievable crash by Djamolidine Abdoujaparov.
“Abdou”, also know as The Tashkent Terror, was an erratic, frightening Uzbek/Soviet sprinter who literally put his head down and drove hard. He joined Eddy Merckx, Alessandro Petacchi and Laurent Jalabert as the only riders to win the sprints competition in all three Grand Tours.
Wearing the green jersey, Abdou hits a giant soda bottle along the barriers and wipes out so hard (wait for the helicopter angle at the end to see just how hard) that he’s in danger of not finishing the race and thus not winning the green jersey he wears. Finally, his teammates help him onto his bike and over the line before he’s loaded into an ambulance.
The picture and sound are fuzzy – yep, that’s Phil and Paul with the call 20 years ago – but it’s still a impressively frightful bit of footage.
