Richie Porte abandons Tour de France after stage nine crash
Last Updated: 16/07/18 8:54am
Australian Richie Porte has been forced to abandon the Tour de France after taking a heavy fall early on during Sunday's stage nine.
Porte, seen as one of the men most likely to challenge Chris Froome for overall victory, was caught in an incident involving several riders just 10km into the stage, and stayed down on the ground holding his collarbone.
Although he scrambled to the side of the road he was unable to remount his bike and instead got into an ambulance.
The general classification contenders knew Sunday's 156.5km stage from Arras to Roubaix was one full of dangers, given the 22km of cobbles involved, but Porte's crash happened more than 35km before the first sector.
Porte won the Tour de Suisse in the build-up to the Tour to suggest he was in perfect form but the 33-year-old, a superb one-week stage racer, has struggled to hold it all together over three weeks in a Grand Tour.
He had already lost time this year due to a fall on stage one and he was almost one minute behind his team-mate Greg Van Avermaet in the overall standings.
The former Team Sky rider crashed out of last year's Tour on stage nine as well, having seen previous tilts at the 2015 Giro d'Italia and the 2016 Tour ruined by mechanical issues and illnesses.
