Matteo Jorgenson is battling sickness the day after crashing: 'On the sidelines, mainly as a precaution'

So far, it hasn't been Matteo Jorgenson's Tour de France. The lead-out man for Visma | Lease a Bike struggled in the heat during the first week and wasn’t able to do what he wanted to do for team leader Jonas Vingegaard. He crashed in the tenth stage after the rest day, and now it turns out he’s sick as well. IDL Pro Cycling paid a visit to Visma | Lease a Bike to see how the American was doing.

Jorgenson got off to a great start in the Tour, playing a major role in the team time trial victory. But in the tough stages in Barcelona and Les Angles, the 27-year-old American was unable to make a significant impact. “It’s a tough Tour de France; I can’t immediately recall a tougher edition,” he said at the time. “This is definitely the hottest one. The heat has a really bad effect on me. I’ve always been more of a cold-weather rider.”

Jorgenson has already ridden the Tour de France twice for Visma | Lease a Bike. In his debut for the team, he finished eighth; a year later, he finished nineteenth. Now, after ten stages, he is in 27th place. So things aren’t going quite as they should yet. “It’s a challenge to deal with, though I’ve managed the last few stages better and was able to conserve some energy.”

Things were going a bit better on the mountain stage to Le Lioran, right up until the descent from Puy Marie. Jorgenson crashed in a turn where Tom Pidcock and—Chris Harper, who has already dropped out—had also fallen. Fortunately, despite sustaining quite a few scrapes, he was able to continue. Team manager Marc Reef said it wasn’t as bad as it looked. “Is it bothering him much? Not right now, no,” he told us on camera. “He was able to keep going then, too. He has some scrapes, but that’s about it.”

So that’s good news, but there was also some less-than-good news. Before the start of the eleventh stage in Vichy, the American climber was not sitting in the Visma | Lease a Bike team bus. Instead, he was driven to the start by car. This really got the rumour mill going.

What was going on with Jorgenson? Reef explained. “He’s feeling a little under the weather. We’re keeping him on the sidelines, mainly as a precaution.” This has caused some concern at Visma | Lease a Bike, but exactly how serious it is remains unclear, according to the Dutch team director. “It’s hard to say anything about that. We’ll see how it develops.” In any case, Jorgenson will start in Stage 11.