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Rabobank's Gesink withdraws from the Tour
The teams of Tour de France contenders Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov suffered further setbacks during the race's fifth stage on Wednesday.
On the descent of the Cote de Treilles as the peloton upped the pace in chase of a six-man breakaway, 23-year-old Dutchman Robert Gesink crashed and picked up injuries to his wrist and left leg.
He was later diagnosed with a fractured wrist and pulled out of the race by his Rabobank team, who have been left reeling with the relative demise of their yellow jersey contender Menchov.
Evans' teammate Staf Scheirlinckx had earlier crashed into a ditch next to Frenchman Stephane Auge near the 100km mark, both riders getting back on their bikes to continue.
Barely a minute later Australian Matthew Lloyd, who is set to help Evans in the upcoming mountains stages, flirted with disaster when he came down near an intermediate sprint next to Austrian Bernhard Eisel of Columbia.
Both Scheirlinckx and Lloyd got back on their bikes and finished the stage and afterwards the Tour's official doctor signalled no injuries.
The withdrawal of Gesink, who was racing his first Tour, is a severe blow for Rabobank after a poor team time trial performance on Tuesday left Menchov nearly four minutes behind race leader Fabian Cancellara, and Lance Armstrong.
Hurt, but getting back on his bike, two of Gesink's Rabobank's teammates slowed to help him get back to the peloton, which minutes later made their job even harder by forcing an echelon.
Gesink had blood dripping from both his arm and leg and appeared to be sruggling to hold the left side of his handlebars as the pace of the chasing peloton split the bunch into several sections.
Menchov, the recent Tour of Italy winner, was left in a second peloton behind all the favourites and had to battle hard to rejoin the chasing bunch in a bid to avoid losing further time.
Gesink eventually finished in second to last place, at nearly 10 minutes behind the peloton.
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