Abrahamsen is competing in his third Tour at 29 and spent the first 10 days of last year’s race in the polka dot jersey, worn by the mountain points leader.

But this was a first stage win on the Tour for Abrahamsen and his Uno-X Mobility team, and came just four weeks after the Norwegian rider broke his collarbone in the Tour of Belgium.

“I was crying in the hospital because I thought I wouldn’t ride in the Tour de France,” he said.

“Every day I did everything I could to come back and now I’m sat here with a Tour de France stage win. It’s amazing. It was my dream to win a Tour stage so it’s so nice.”

Pogacar was unharmed after his crash 4km from the finish of Wednesday’s flat 156km stage, which began and ended in Toulouse.

The Slovenian fell after hitting the back wheel of another rider and slid across several metres of road before struggling to put his chain back on.

It looked as though he would lose 30 to 40 seconds but his main GC rivals Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel sportingly waited for him to catch up.

After this year’s first rest day, it was a dramatic resumption for the Tour, with Abrahamsen and Schmid attacking from the outset to establish themselves in a long-range breakaway.

The stage began at a rapid pace, averaging 52km over the first hour, and splits repeatedly formed in the peloton while a chase group tried to reel in a five-man breakaway, which included British rider Fred Wright.

Wednesday also featured five categorised climbs, with two in the final 14km, when Van der Poel attacked out of the five chasers to close the gap.

Although the Dutch rider wore the yellow jersey earlier in the race, he is now out of GC contention and ultimately fell just short of claiming his second stage win this year.

As Abrahamsen and Schmid sprinted for the stage win, a protester ran on to the course about 50 metres from the line before being restrained by a security officer.

The protestor wore a T-shirt that read ‘Israel out of the Tour’. There are no Israeli riders competing but there is one Israeli team, Israel-Premier Tech.

The race heads into the Pyrenees on Thursday for a 180.6km mountain route from Auch to this year’s first summit finish at Hautacam.