A mass crash with 62 kilometres to go on stage 13 of the Tour de France from Nîmes to Carcassonne saw several notable names go down hard, with several flying through the trees and bushes into a ravine.
Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange), Sergio Higuita (EF Education-Nippo) and Nacer Bouhanni (Arkéa-Samsic) were among the riders to the hit the deck after the pace had upped at the front of the peloton in the final third of the 219.9-kilometre stage.
Yates landed on the tarmac and while he got back on his bike eventually, he abandoned the race after a short chase, as did teammate Lucas Hamilton. Both riders have been selected to represent their nation's at the Olympic Games.
Søren Kragh Andersen (Team DSM), who narrowly made the time cut on the Mont Ventoux stage, had more bad luck as he was among those who ran off the road into a ravine. The Dane could be seen scrambling up the verge through the bushes. Rafał Majka (UAE Team Emirates), Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious), Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) and Tim Declercq (Deceuninck-QuickStep) were also caught up in the crash.
Lotto Soudal's Roger Kluge abandoned after being caught in the crash, leaving the Belgian squad with just four riders in the peloton for the final eight days of the race.
Several riders were treated at the scene, though most of those involved were soon back up and running. Víctor de la Parte (Total Energies) need treatment on a badly bleeding elbow from the race doctor's car.
Soon afterwards, Jumbo-Visma's Wout Van Aert was among those pushing the pace at the front of the peloton with the breakaway just 40 seconds up the road, while further back there were groups scattered down the road. The peloton eventually eased to let the riders return to the peloton.
Yates was initially a group at two minutes behind the peloton, with Thomas also in the small chase group having been held up by the crash.
