William Bonnet will be start at the Challenge Mallorca at the end of this month. It will be his first race since he fractured two vertebrae at the last Tour de France. The FDJ rider crashed on stage 3 of the 2015 Tour de France, 60 kilometres from the day’s finish on the Mur de Huy. The Frenchman touched the wheel of a rider in front of him and hit the ground, causing one of the biggest crashes of the race.

"His life was in danger. He’s become a rider again," general manager Marc Madiot told L’Équipe. "If everything goes well he’ll be pinning on a dossard again soon. It should be at the Challenge Mallorca."

Last month he told Rouleur.cc that he thought it to be the end of his career. "I asked myself the question because it was serious. I also didn’t know how I was going to deal with the cervical injury; it was the surgeon who told me on December 1: ‘It’s okay, you can return to the road because we’ve seen that all is well strengthened and repaired.’"