BMC Racing Team's Campbell Flakemore crashed and broke his left collarbone while riding back to the team hotel after the finish of Wednesday's stage of the Santos Tour Down Under.

Flakemore said the accident happened while he was negotiating a turn on a descent.

"We were going pretty quickly – maybe 55 or 60 kilometers an hour," he said. "It was a left-hand turn and on the shoulder there was gravel or I maybe hit a bit of a groove. The next thing I knew I was on the ground. As soon as I got up, I knew something in my shoulder or collarbone was pretty bad."

BMC Racing Team's Dr. Scott Major said Flakemore will undergo surgery Thursday in Adelaide.

"It was a clean break in the middle part of the clavicle, which is the best place for a fracture to occur," Dr. Major said. "It is also most amenable to fixing it surgically."

In Wednesday's stage, Flakemore had been part of a three-man breakaway with Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) and Cameron Meyer (ORICA-GreenEDGE) for more than 120 kilometers of the 150.5-km race. He went on to finish 113th on the day, 5:48 behind the stage winner.

Teammate Cadel Evans, who finished fifth on the day to climb into 10th overall, said Campbell's loss amounts to much more than simply being without a teammate for the remaining four days of the race.

"As Campbell showed in the national championships and as he showed today, he is a fantastic guy for the race," Evans said. "Just to get in that (breakaway) move was really clever and observant. He was really showing his maturity and looks like a rider to me who has the capabilities to utilize his physical potential, which is a pretty rare combination. It is really unlucky for him after what he did today and in the national championships. I was just thinking after the race what a good job he is doing."

Flakemore – the reigning Under 23 world time trial champion – finished fourth in the Australian national road race and sixth in the time trial earlier this month. New to the BMC Racing Team for 2015, he was riding in his second Santos Tour Down Under after finishing 128th overall last year while riding for UniSA-Australia, the national team squad.

Sport Director Fabio Baldato said Flakemore will definitely be missed as Evans tries to better his runner-up finish – by one second – at this race a year ago.

"It is a big loss because we saw today and yesterday that Campbell was one of the strongest riders," Baldato said. "He is a great teammate and a great worker. The other guys are really upset about what happened. Now we will need to be more attentive. But we still have five strong riders next to Cadel."