Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp) has seen very little good fortune since winning the Giro d’Italia last year. The Canadian crashed out of the 2012 Tour de France in a major pile-up near the end of the stage to Metz. His Giro d’Italia title defence this year was curtailed by a virus and a subsequent lack of power which forced him to abandon, and he subsequently crashed out of the Tour de Suisse.

Hesjedal’s accident-prone streak continued as the Tour de France got under way yesterday.

Hesjedal was brought down before the big crash which disrupted the finale of the opening stage as riders hit intermittently placed barriers and other riders crashed into them from behind. After the stage Hesjedal said he was getting tired of crashing and blamed poor bike-handling abilities of some riders.

"You try to avoid things, but guys don't react in time and you get crashed. I'm getting a little bit tired of it," he said according to Cyclingnews when he arrived at the Garmin-Sharp bus immediately after finishing the opening stage in Bastia.

"I fell on my left side. My ribs are kind of sore - that was the first thing I noticed. I went down on bikes and guys. My shin's swelling up too," he said. “The roads are fine, but the guys were crashing into the barriers. They were there and then not there, so all of a sudden, if you have your bars in a certain place, too far to the left, you've got to take account of the barriers," he added."On the last stretch, guys crashed into the barriers on the left-hand side and crashed into the barriers on the right-hand side. You can't save yourself from that. If the guys aren't paying attention, they hit the barriers."

Like everybody else, Hesjedal was given the same time as stage winner Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) due to the crashes and the ensuing chaos.