Hennie Kuiper lights a candle for Casartelli: ‘The blood flowed from his ears’ | Tour de France

The memorial of Fabio Casartelli

Ⓒ Getty Images

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sport">SAINT-GAUDENS – Many held their breath as the rain poured down on the descent of the Col de Portet-d’Aspet. Hennie Kuiper watched the sixteenth Tour stage – in which the classification riders (wisely) kept quiet – with chills here and there, thinking back to the terrible images of July 18, 1995 when he saw Fabio Casartelli lying lifeless on the asphalt of the sink. “I lit a candle this morning,” said Kuiper, then sports director of the Italian who died not much later from his (head) injuries.

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