\n<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“I was crying in the hospital because I thought I wouldn’t ride in the Tour de France,” he said. <\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
Pogacar was unharmed after his crash 4km from the finish of Wednesday’s flat 156km stage, which began and ended in Toulouse.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Although the Dutch rider wore the yellow jersey earlier in the race,<\/a> he is now out of GC contention and ultimately fell just short of claiming his second stage win this year.<\/a><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n