Romain Bardet suffered a heavy crash on stage one of the recent Route d'Occitanie and has been forced to pull out of Thursday's Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge due to injury to his elbow.
The climbing specialist was using the race as a warm up towards the Tour de France, but will now resume racing at the Critérium du Dauphiné next Wednesday with bruising to his elbow.
In an interview with L'Equipe on Wednesday he said: "My race stopped on the first day."
"I've just been surviving since then, and don't even know whether I'm going to be able to continue racing, as I'm in so much pain.
"I'm going to have some X-rays tomorrow, and just try to look after myself.
"The Tour is still a few weeks away, but I don't want to risk causing any further damage before my big goals."
>>> Watch: Chris Froome responds to French fans booing at La Route d’Occitanie
The winner of the king of the mountains at the Tour de France has since confirmed he will not take the start of the Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge, where he finished second last year, so he can rest and recover.
The main issue is with his left side, especially his arm as he is complaining about pulling on the handlebars, especially when climbing.
In a statement, his Ag2r La Mondiale team said: "Suffering from bruises to his left elbow following his fall during the second stage of the Route d'Occitanie, Romain Bardet will not take part in the CIC Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge tomorrow. He will not be replaced. He will be at the start of the Critérium du Dauphiné."
The French rider did manage eighth place on the summit finish at the Route d'Occitanie where he crossed the line at a very respectable 1-18 down on the fully fit Egan Bernal, who went on to win the overall.
Bardet was originally down to race the Giro d'Italia before the pandemic, but has now turned his attentions back to his home Grand Tour, with the Giro taking on three time trials, and a chance to redeem himself after what was a disappointing race for him last year.
Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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