Geraint Thomas suffered a strange fall on stage 16 of Tour de France, being bucked off his bike on a gentle corner.
The Welshman appeared to lose the front wheel on a right-hand turn with around 130km left to race.
Team Ineos leader Thomas may have clipped the curb and was thrown from his bike and slid along the floor on his left side, luckily avoiding the rest of the peloton.
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Thomas was straight back up but suffered a mechanical in the fall and had to wait for his team car for a mechanic to provide him with a new machine.
After losing around a minute, Thomas’s team-mates dropped back to help the reigning champion chase back onto the bunch, and he was able to successfully regain the race without much drama.
He appears to have suffered a graze to his left knee and received some attention from his team car, but other than that he hasn’t suffered any further injury.
Stage 16 was expected to be a relaxed day in terms of the general classification battle, covering 177km starting and finishing in Nîmes.
Blisteringly hot conditions, with temperatures hitting around 40 degrees, will make it a brutal day nonetheless, and there was a potential crosswind that could have split the race later in the stage.
Thomas currently sits second after an exhilarating stint in the Pyrenees and is 1-35 down on surprise yellow jersey Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck – Quick-Step).
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Alaphilippe survived the first high mountains of the race on the Tourmalet and Prat d’Albis, but did crack on the latter in the closing 5km of stage 15.
Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) also appears to be a serious threat for the overall, having clawed his way back into the fight with attacks on consecutive mountain days.
