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Tour de France: Adam Yates injured after air bridge collapses

Tour de France, stage seven, air bridge
Image: The 1km-to-go air bridge collapses in front of the peloton on stage seven

Stage seven of the Tour de France descended into chaos when the air bridge marking 1km to go collapsed in front of Britain's Adam Yates and held up the rest of the peloton.

Yates needed four stitches to a cut on his chin after the bridge suddenly fell just as he was passing under and caused him to crash.

Adam Yates, Tour de France, air bridge
Image: Adam Yates walks away from the air bridge with a wound to his face

The 23-year-old Orica-BikeExchange rider ended up crossing the line four minutes down on the peloton, but race organisers later ruled that all general classification times would be taken from the 3km-to-go mark.

Yates had been seven seconds ahead of the bunch at that point, following an attack on the final climb of the day, which was enough to lift him to second in the general classification, 5min 50sec down on race leader Greg Van Avermaet, and into the best young rider's white jersey.

Tour de France, stage seven, air bridge
Image: An aerial view of the collapsed air bridge

Yates said: "I'm disappointed. There is not much you can do. I had no time to react. It's a good job it was just me on my own. It could have been a lot worse with the peloton sprinting at 70kph. 

"It is what it is. Nothing can be done about it. I can't tell you what happened. The barrier came down."

Tour de France standings
Tour de France standings

Results and current standings in the general, points, mountains and youth classifications

Speaking before the revised results were announced, Yates said: "I attacked at the top of the climb. I tried to make a gap to take the white jersey. I hope so. We'll see what the organisers decided."

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Stage seven was won by Britain's Steve Cummings, who passed under the bridge before it collapsed.

The Tour continues on Saturday with a 184km mountain stage from Pau to Bagneres-de-Luchon. Find out more about the route in our race guide and follow the stage with our live blog from 12pm BST.

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