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.
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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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