The Tour de France casualty list continues to grow

PICTURES: THE Tour de France is only halfway through and already the brutal race has claimed its fair share of scalps.

Britain's Mark Cavendish injured receives medical assistance after a fall near the finish line at the end of the 190.5 km first stage of the 101st edition of the Tour de France cycling race on July 5, 2014 between Leeds and Harrogate, northern England. The 2014 Tour de France gets underway on July 5 in the streets of Leeds and ends on July 27 down the Champs-Elysees in Paris. AFP PHOTO / JEFF PACHOUD

THE Tour de France is only halfway through and already the brutal race has claimed its fair share of scalps.

Former champions, Tour contenders, sprint superstars and an Aussie are among those to have fallen victim to a particularly nasty edition of the three-week torture-fest.

Here’s a snapshot of the casualty ward so far:

Chris Froome bears some nasty cuts after his early Tour crashes.

CHRIS FROOME

The biggest story of this year’s race happened before the end of the first week, when defending champion Froome crashed badly on Stage 4.

Tour medicos slapped a splint on his left wrist and bandaged his right hand and thigh and he managed to finish the day’s racing, but the worst possible stage awaited the following day — a rain-soaked, cobblestone-filled slugfest from Ypres to Arenberg Porte du Hainaut.

After falling twice more on Stage 5, Froome’s battered body had enough and the Brit pulled out well before the finish.

Just how brave he was to battle on only became apparent later, when he revealed that he’d fractured both his left wrist and his right hand.

ALBERTO CONTADOR

Expected to be Froome’s biggest challenger for yellow in Paris, the 2007 and 2009 champion crashed while descending a relatively straight stretch of road on Stage 10 and was forced to withdraw about 15km later, despite managing to mount a spare bike and continue.

Scans on his torn and bloodied leg later revealed a fracture that will almost certainly rule him out of the Tour of Spain.

Mark Cavendish lies injured after a fall near the finish line at the end of the 190.5 km first stage of the Tour de France.

MARK CAVENDISH

The British sprinter’s much-anticipated three days on home soil didn’t even last one stage, with the “Manx Missile” causing his own crash in the dash to the line in Sheffield.

Cavendish took Australian champion Simon Gerrans down with him, but Gerrans has been able to race on, while the 2011 green sprinter’s jersey winner exited with a dislocated collarbone and ruptured ligaments.

Andrew Talansky’s horror crash on Stage 7.

ANDREW TALANSKY

Touted as a potential Tour contender for the Garmin-Sharp team, Talansky produced one of the bravest performances in the race’s recent history when

The American had crashed twice in the first week of racing, the worst of which was on Stage 7 when he hit the pavement, shoulder first, in the sprint finish. He also came off his bike the next day.

Talansky laboured through Stage 10, losing 10 minutes as the road started going skywards but giving himself a chance of recovering due to the rest day the following day.

Stage 11 brought more pain, and this time no one was waiting for him. In an incredible show of mental and physical strength, Talansky was dropped early in the stage but battled solo for more than 100km, finishing more than 32 minutes behind stage winner Tony Gallopin but managing to beat the cut-off time.

Unfortunately he was forced to abandon the race before the start of Stage 12.

Mathew Hayman’s Tour met an early end on Stage 10.

MATHEW HAYMAN

The first Aussie to pull out of the race, Orica-GreenEDGE rider Hayman succumbed on Stage 10 to soreness from crashes in a nasty first week.

He lost touch with the peloton early and couldn’t recover, abandoning the race late in the day.

“He hasn’t been 100 per cent over the last couple of days since his crash and with the brutal start today he lost contact with the bunch and never came back,” GreenEDGE sport director Matt White said.

“It’s an unfortunate end to Matty’s Tour because he was our captain on the road and he would have been very very important from now until the end of the Tour.”

ANDY SCHLECK

A shadow of the man who was named the 2010 Tour winner after Alberto Contador’s doping ban, Schleck’s fortunes went from bad to worse after he crashed on the third stage from Cambridge to London.

While initially the damage looked like a bit of blood and lost skin, the eventual damage report read like something from a footy field or a netball court: partially ruptured cruciate and collateral ligaments, torn meniscus and further damage to the articular cartilage.

Schleck had surgery immediately and will be on crutches for at least two weeks before he can begin to even think about when he might ride a bike again.

Fabian Cancellara didn’t crash out, but the effects of a killer racing schedule eventually took their tool.

FABIAN CANCELLARA

With only one time trial in this year’s race — the penultimate stage before the final jaunt to the Champs Elysees — chances are time trial specialist Cancellara was never going to hang around to see the finish.

The Swiss gun pulled out before Stage 11, just a day after finishing second on Stage 9, saying he needed a break before rebooting for the world championships in September.

Cancellara’s withdrawal left the Trek Factory Racing team with just six riders, after Schleck and Danny van Poppel also pulled the pin.

Originally published as The Tour de France casualty list continues to grow