Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Sharp) crashed during yesterday’s stage 5 of the Tour de France, 15 kilometres from the finish. According to team doctor, Prentice Steffen:

"Christian has plates in his collarbone from previous injuries. After today's crash, an ultrasound and x-ray show a blood clot in a neck muscle (left sternocleidomastoid) and a loosened screw in his clavicle plate. From what we can tell, it is possible that the screw may have jabbed a muscle. Preliminary x-rays do not show a fracture but it probably flexed a bit in the crash and disrupted a screw. It’s an unusual injury and we will monitor him over night and make a determination in the morning as to whether or not he will start the stage. Christian's health is the most important thing to us, so we will evaluate him again tomorrow and determine next steps at that time." 

Garmin-Sharp team leader Ryder Hesjedal crashed during Stage 1 and despite suffering a broken rib has been racing well since. Confirming the injury yesterday with an x-ray helped the team medical staff continue to treat it.  Said Hesjedal: "I have had some discomfort since the crash I was involved in during stage 1. A scan today [Wednesday] confirmed a fracture so at least now we know what we're dealing with. A lot of times with rib injuries fractures don't show up right away so waiting until today we were able to confirm what's going on. There's not much you can do about a fractured rib except to deal with the discomfort so that is what I've been doing and will keep doing. I just hope Christian and everyone else who crashed today is ok."

"Ryder and Tom [Danielson] are both ok, so we're happy about that," said Charly Wegelius, Direcor Sportif. "We'll need to see how Christian does tonight and we'll make the call in the morning on whether or not he can start – of course we -and he- are hopeful that he can but just need to see how things go. The team overall is strong and motivated and our goal is to keep lighting up the race as we roll toward Paris. There is still a lot of racing yet to come and we're proud of how the team is riding."