Lloyd fell coming out of a blind corner on Stage 7, with his right shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. The Australian could be seen standing on the side of the road when Levi Leipheimer and several of his Omega Pharma – QuickStep teammates rounded the same corner and crashed into the gendarme who had been sitting on his motorbike behind Lloyd.
"My collarbone is broken," Lloyd said via text message. "Had it been nasty I wouldn't have finished the stage."
He eventually got back on his bike and rode into Nice nearly 17 minutes down on the winning time of Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil – DCM). Lloyd did not contend the final stage time trial.
Lloyd told Cyclingnews that he was keen for it to be noted "with some clarity" that the injury would "not hinder any progress towards April, May and beyond."
"Generally when you do have an objective like that if you take it too seriously it tends to be overwhelming for anyone, so I'm pretty relaxed about it," he explained. "There's no festering, deep-seeded thing in the back of my mind wanting to smash everything to pieces mainly because I know that it's relatively useless when it comes to riding your bike. I prefer to exploit the fact the race has a lot of climbs."
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As a sports journalist and producer since 1997, Jane has covered Olympic and Commonwealth Games, rugby league, motorsport, cricket, surfing, triathlon, rugby union, and golf for print, radio, television and online. However her enduring passion has been cycling.
Jane is a former Australian Editor of Cyclingnews from 2011 to 2013 and continues to freelance within the cycling industry.
