Cycling:Giro d'Italia champion Ryder Hesjedal abandoned the Tour de France ahead of stage seven today. The Canadian had been tipped as a contender for the yellow jersey, but sustained what his Garmin-Sharp team described as "a massive haematoma on his left hip and leg".
Garmin-Sharp directeur sportif Jonathan Vaughters wrote on Twitter: “Hesjedal is not going to start. Sad, but he’ll be back.”
Hesjedal was involved in a major collision around 26km from the end of yesterday’s stage to Metz, losing more than 13 minutes as a result.
It was a crash his Irish team-mate Daniel Martin as one of the scariest moments of his life in his column in The Irish Times.
Martin stopped just in time and avoided injury, but his team-mate Tom Danielson had to abandon as a result of the incident after dislocating his shoulder and suffering numerous other injuries.
