Fans getting out of control on Tour de France climbs
BOURG D’OISANS, France — A spectator threw a smoke bomb into the Tour de France peloton as it passed by on Friday.
Nobody came to any harm. Unlike on Thursday, when a fan’s camera strap appeared to snag Vincenzo Nibali’s handlebars on Alpe d’Huez, he slammed to the ground and broke a vertebra.
The incidents make teams worried fans are getting out of hand on the most famous climbs of the Tour.
“The organizers need to think of something, or put up more fences,” Paolo Slongo, Nibali’s coach with the Bahrain-Merida team, told The Associated Press on Friday. “There is a problem, and it’s getting bigger and bigger. We’ve got to figure out something to resolve it.”