Tour de France: Gilbert drove 60 km with broken kneecap

Philippe Gilbert crashed on Tuesday at the start of stage 16, shortly after the police had to stop the field due to a pepper spray operation. The Belgian broke his kneecap, but finished the race bravely. But now he had to finish his tour and published a photo of the damaged knee.

Gilbert was leading the field 57.2 kilometres before the end of the 218-kilometre leg when he flew headfirst over a roadblock. He finished the stage despite a broken kneecap and wanted to finish the tour.

After an MRI, however, it was clear to the Belgian that the tour was over. Gilbert was in Toulouse to investigate when he explained that he was “happy” to have returned after the difficult moment. However, “this is not the way I wanted to end the tour”.

Gilbert published a photo of the broken knee on his Twitter channel and thanked the fans for their support during the tour.