[And-L]

Thibaut Pinot’s injury is a consequence of an incident that occurred two days ago, sport director Philippe Mauduit revealed to Francetelevisions. “As he avoided a crash, his left knee hit the handlebar and the pain just got worse”, the Frenchman said. “We’ve been hoping for an improvement but we knew this morning that it would be complicated if the race was hard. He’s been in pain since the start. It wasn’t possible to keep riding.” Mauduit was the sport director of Alberto Contador when the Spaniard was forced to abandon the 2015 Tour de France.