Tony Martin abandons the Tour de France after crash

Tony Martin has abandoned the Tour de France 2021. 

The Jumbo-Visma road captain has suffered countless misfortunes in this race, crashing on numerous occasions.

German time trial champion Martin crashed again in the opening kilometres of stage 11 of the Tour, falling into a ditch in the incident.

He was able to get to his feet but looked dazed at the side of the road.  

TV cameras didn't pick up Martin's crash, but he was filmed shortly after getting onto a stretcher by paramedics and loaded into an ambulance.

Race organisers confirmed shortly after that Martin had abandoned the Tour.

Martin crashed in the opening 30km of stage 11, a 198km run from Sorgues to Maulacène.

He is the third rider from Jumbo-Visma to abandon this year's Tour de France, after Robert Gesink left the race after a crash on stage three (which also involved Geraint Thomas). 

Later on stage three Jumbo-Visma's general classification leader Primož Roglič went down in the final 10km, suffering cuts and bruises but luckily avoiding any fractures.

After continuing the race, Roglič then began to lose time in the following stages as he struggled with his injuries, eventually deciding to leave the race before the start of stage nine.  

The loss of Martin is a significant blow as Jumbo-Visma are backing their young GC contender Jonas Vingegaard, who currently sits fourth overall, and are chasing stage wins for Wout van Aert. 

Martin is the 20th rider to drop out of this attritional Tour de France, with 163 riders still in the race. 

Riders have abandoned this race for a number of reasons, including crashes for Roglič and a selection of others, while Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) chose to abandon the race on stage nine to focus on his Olympic ambitions.

>>> Tour de France stage 11 LIVE: Sorgues to Malaucène

There was also a number of riders who failed to make the time cut on the brutal stage nine to Tignes, including Nic Dlamini (Qhubeka-NextHash), and sprinter Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ).