(Reuters) – Former Giro d’Italia winner Tom Dumoulin abandoned the race shortly after the start of the fifth stage on Wednesday.
The Dutch rider, winner in 2017 and one of the favorites for the three-week race, injured his left knee in a massive pileup about six km from the line in a 235-km ride from Orbetello on Tuesday.
“Tom Dumoulin’s injuries have proved too painful and he is forced to abandon the Giro d’Italia in the early kilometers of stage 5,” Team Sunweb said on Twitter.
The team had said earlier that he had been cleared to race by medical staff and would “give it his best shot”.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; editing by Amlan Chakraborty and Ken Ferris)
