Kennaugh a doubt for Tour de France after crash

The Team Sky rider fell in the peloton 17 kilometres from the finish of stage three and was taken straight to hospital.

Kennaugh's crash came just before the first summit finish of the event and the British road race champion will now have to make a speedy recovery if he is to line up at the start of the Tour de France on July 2.

And Team Sky sport director Gabriel Rasch acknowledges that the timing of the crash was particularly unfortunate.

"We were looking all good until Pete crashed," he explained. "When he crashed the guys waited for him and pretty quickly we saw he couldn't carry on.

"But by then it was almost too late so the guys just went in the grupetto from there. The crash came at the worst possible time, just before the final climb.

"We still have some good chances this week, with Danny [van Poppel] in the sprints and we will see how Lars Petter [Nordhaug] is.

"There are a couple of stages with some pretty hard finals so we will see how he goes there."

Sportsbeat 2016