Tour de France: Simon Yates escapes serious injury after stage 13 crash
The British rider came down heavily in a large crash and wasn't able to continue
Team BikeExchange have released an update on Simon Yates' condition after he abandoned the Tour de France 2021 due to a heavy crash on stage 13.
The team's doctor confirmed that the British climber had trauma to his abdominal wall before he was then transferred to the hospital in the finish city of Carcassonne where he underwent a precautionary CT scan which fortunately didn't show further issues. He is aiming to ride the Olympic Games road race in Tokyo on July 24, so will be hoping the after-effects of the crash don't hamper his preparations.
Yates went down with a large group of riders including his team-mate and climber, Lucas Hamilton, who also abandoned the race soon after Yates did with it later revealed that he suffered a dislocated shoulder.
>>> Tour de France stage 14 LIVE: Carcassonne to Quillan
The team's head sport director, Matt White said: "It is devastating for Lucas and Simon; everybody knows how much hard work the boys put in to prepare for the biggest race of the year. We have lost two of our three climbers going into the Pyrenees which means we are going to have to adjust our tactics but the immediate priority for us is to see how the guys are and that they recover well."
The team would have been targetting days in the Pyrenees to try and take a stage win but now they're only left with one climber in the race, Esteban Chaves.
Yates has been in the breakaway on a couple of occasions at the race but did look a bit off the pace, being dropped by the likes of Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) on the climbs, which is not what we're used to seeing from the 2018 Vuelta a España winner.
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Yates was involved in a crash with around 62km to go after the pace had rocketed due to a plethora of attacks at the front of the peloton. The peloton went onto a fast and tight descent that had patches on gravel on the right-hand side of the road which brought a large number of riders down, with some falling down the side of the hill next to the road.
Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) went on to win his 34th and record-equaling stage win at the Tour de France on stage 13 but it's back to the climbing with 183.7km in the foothills of the Pyrenees between Carcassonne and Quillan.
Tim Bonville-Ginn is a freelance writer who has worked with Cycling Weekly since 2020 and has also written for many of the biggest publications in cycling media including Cyclingnews, Rouleur, Cyclist and Velo.