Retired rider Nacer Bouhanni and his ex-team Arkéa-B&B Hotels are suing the Tour of Turkey for a mixed whole of €6.9 million in damages after the French sprinter’s crash on the 2022 version of the race.
Bouhanni fractured a vertebra in his neck after getting caught up in a multi-rider crash on stage 2 of the April race when a spectator strolling on the highway didn’t get out of the way in which of the peloton.
He’d misplaced all the remainder of his 2022 season because of the harm and struggled for a lot of the next marketing campaign earlier than hanging up his wheels on the finish of the season on the age of 33.
“After my severe accident final yr that value me a damaged neck and a really lengthy rehabilitation interval, I grew to become a shadow of myself. I fought physique and soul to try to get again to my degree in useless. Life determined in another way,” Bouhanni wrote on Instagram as he introduced his retirement final October.
Now, Bouhanni, who nonetheless undergoes weekly physiotherapy classes on his neck, is searching for €2.7 million in damages over the crash from the Turkish Cycling Federation, which organises the Tour of Turkey.
French WorldTour squad Arkéa-B&B Hotels, in the meantime, are searching for €4.2 million in damages, citing a lack of revenue because of the crash, which additionally introduced down Mirco Maestri, Kévin Ledanois, and Manuel Peñalver.
According to L’Equipe, Bouhanni’s legal professionals have argued that the accident “would by no means have occurred if the organizer had revered the security requirements imposed by the UCI.”
Arkéa-B&B Hotels supervisor Emanuel Hubert stated that his workforce had misplaced out on UCI factors because of Bouhanni being out of motion for such an prolonged time period.
“In Turkey, Nacer got here near paralysis,” Hubert stated to L’Equipe, “He did every little thing nicely to return again however he all the time had that in thoughts. Nacer is a pleasant man, I might have favored him to win a race earlier than bowing out.”
Bouhanni spent 13 years within the skilled peloton, racing solely for French squads – FDJ, Cofidis and Arkéa. He racked up 70 wins as an expert, together with three levels apiece on the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España, plus the factors jersey on the 2014 Giro. His final professional win got here on the 2022 La Roue Tourangelle, three weeks earlier than the Tour of Turkey crash.
