The Tour Hotties just aren’t doing so hot.
Chris Froome and abandoned the Tour de France earlier this month, and now another star rider has called it quits. This time, it’s American Andrew Talansky.
His team, Garmin-Sharp, announced in a Thursday morning that Talansky would not start Stage 12. Doctors diagnosed Talansky with acute sacroilitis, an inflammation of the sacroiliac joint, which connects the pelvis to the spine.
The decision comes on the heels of Talansky’s rough completion of Stage 11, in which he endured pain from two hard crashes in previous stages, a back so stiff that he could not remove his jersey without a team staff member’s help, and an upper respiratory infection. He finished the stage with five minutes to spare before the disqualification time cutoff.
“I’m absolutely heartbroken to leave the Tour de France. I had hoped the rest day would allow some time to recover from my crashes,” Talansky said in the team statement. “But it proved to be too much.”
Although he is dismissing himself from the biggest race of the year, Talanksy still had an impressive 2014 season, winning the Criterium du Dauphine in June and solidifying his place in cycling.