Tour de France cyclist pulls out after losing part of thumb in crash

Australian cyclist Chris Harper has joked that he's about '10g lighter' after losing a chunk of his thumb in a crash during the Tour de France.

The 31-year-old was cycling the 10th stage of the world's most iconic bike race on Tuesday (14 July) and he was near the top of the Puy Marie descent when the crash occurred.

Both Harper and his team leader Tom Pidcock fell at the same point, but while Pidcock managed to get back up and on Le Tour again, Harper had to stop because his thumb was bleeding quite badly.

Incredibly, the Australian cyclist was eventually able to get back on the bike again and finish the stage over half an hour after winner Tadej Pogačar but he didn't make the next stage the following day and that's it for his Tour de France.

He's since updated cycling fans on his condition, showing them his wounded thumb and joking that he'll now be more streamlined for future races as he's lost a bit of weight.

"Pulling out of any bike race sucks but hurts a bit more to pull out of the biggest one of them all," he said

"Thanks to the team for the support and fingers crossed for a quick recovery and back into some racing for the second part of the season.

"On a positive note think I’m now 10g lighter."

While Harper has lost a chunk of his thumb there have been several Tour de France competitors who complained about the state of the surface, as The Athletic reports that Pidcock raised an issue.

He said: "I don’t know what they do to the roads here when they are cleaned, but they put that white s**t over them. And that is very slippery."

Soren Waerenskjold, who won yesterday's stage of the Tour de France, said he 'had a swollen leg' and his fingers were hurting where he lost some skin off them from a crash.

"It was a bit more skin off my fingers than I’m used to when crashing, so it was painful, but ok after a while," the cyclist said.

Riding the Tour de France can be a dangerous business as cyclists have become seriously injured during the competition in the past, with some major crashes that involved several of the competitors being one of the hazards along the way.

Another is falling foul of 'morons' who lay nails on the track in the hopes of puncturing the tyres of riders they don't like, with the cyclists raging at the damage being done to their bikes and the risks being posed to them.

Then there's the spectators themselves, as collisions with them have in the past resulted in serious injuries including a broken neck for Daniel Oss in 2022, though he did manage to make it to the end of his current stage before retiring from Le Tour.

As if that wasn't bad enough, that same year Thibaut Pinot was clobbered in the face with a bag by a trainer.