Van Aert hopeful, but not certain, of staying in Tour after crash | Video

Wout van Aert said he would have to wait and see how he felt before he would know for certain if he could carry on at the Tour de France (Photo: Billy Ceusters)

Wout van Aert took another tumble on stage 11 of the Tour de France on Wednesday, saying afterwards he was in pain for the remainder of the day after his fall. While he did not have any broken bones that would force him to abandon immediately, he was still less than certain he would be able to continue in the race.

Though the Visma-Lease a Bike rider said at the finish in Le Lioran he ha gone for X-rays and have been told he had not fractured his left arm, which was the source of pain, there was still a question mark over his ability to continue in the race.

The Belgian rider overshot a left hander with about 46km to go and crashed hard onto the tarmac. Though his team leader, Jonas Vingegaard, went on to win the stage, Van Aert finished back in 111th, losing just over 30 minutes.

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He explained his arm was "quite painful" after his "serious" crash, which he said was cause by his own error in judging the corner incorrectly and not expecting it to be as tight as it was.

"I crashed quite hard on the sidewalk and afterwards it was quite painful on every downhill so I was a bit afraid for the arm.

"But apparently it's not fractured. So I hope I can recover from it and that I can continue. For sure, it doesn't help us to crash again.

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"On the other hand, in the last 15k to hear that Jonas won… both for me and Christoph (Laporte) in our group, it was less painful."

Asked if he could get back into the peloton, recover and work towards helping Vingegaard won a third Tour, he said:

"We'll see. That's, of course, my goal but so far it's not been really lucky this year with crashes. We'll see how I feel tomorrow, but I'm just happy I don't have something serious and to have to abandon and that's the most important for now.

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