Retired rider Nacer Bouhanni and his ex-team Arkéa-B&B Hotels are suing the Tour of Turkey for a combined total of €6.9 million in damages after the French sprinter’s crash at the 2022 edition 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 walking on the road failed to get out of the way of the peloton.
He’d lost the entire rest of his 2022 season due to the injury and struggled for much of the following campaign before hanging up his wheels at the end of the season at the age of 33.
“After my serious accident last year that cost me a broken neck and a very long rehabilitation period, I became a shadow of myself. I fought body and soul to try and get back to my level in vain. Life decided differently,” Bouhanni wrote on Instagram as he announced his retirement last October.
Now, Bouhanni, who still undergoes weekly physiotherapy sessions on his neck, is seeking €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, meanwhile, are seeking €4.2 million in damages, citing a loss of income as a result of the crash, which also brought down Mirco Maestri, Kévin Ledanois, and Manuel Peñalver.
According to L’Equipe, Bouhanni’s lawyers have argued that the accident “would never have occurred if the organizer had respected the safety standards imposed by the UCI.”
Arkéa-B&B Hotels manager Emanuel Hubert said that his team had lost out on UCI points as a result of Bouhanni being out of action for such an extended period of time.
“In Turkey, Nacer came close to paralysis,” Hubert said to L’Equipe, “He did everything well to come back but he always had that in mind. Nacer is a nice guy, I would have liked him to win a race before bowing out.”
Bouhanni spent 13 years in the professional peloton, racing exclusively for French squads – FDJ, Cofidis and Arkéa. He racked up 70 wins as a professional, including three stages apiece at the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España, plus the points jersey at the 2014 Giro. His last pro win came at the 2022 La Roue Tourangelle, three weeks before the Tour of Turkey crash.
