Hours pass and significant withdrawals from the upcoming Tour de France are increasing. Several expected riders have recently been forced to raise the white flag, officially announcing forfeitures that will inevitably require their teams to make lineup changes for the French stage race.

Among those who were most eagerly awaited and have communicated their unavailability for the big July event in the last twenty-four hours is certainly David Gaudu, who, after a rather lackluster Giro d'Italia (also due to a hand injury), has not been able to put together a sufficiently good condition to line up at the start in Lille.

"Given my current level, we have decided in agreement with the team to skip the Tour this year" he stated to L'Equipe. "I have been transparent with the team. They have my values, my data and [...] the sensations, despite the workouts and mountain training done until last weekend, are still not good. I would have gone to the Tour just to finish it, and that would not have made sense" continued the Groupama-FDJ rider, clearly disappointed by this mandatory choice.

"It is obviously a great disappointment, especially because this year the Tour passes through Brittany and my loved ones could have come to see me".

Like him, another highly rated French rider, Benoit Cosnefroy, will not participate in the Grande Boucle. In his case, however, what led him to withdraw from the race was the crash in the first stage of the Tour of Switzerland, from which he emerged quite battered.

"Following the crash at the Tour de Suisse, Cosnefroy suffered a knee contusion and, unfortunately, will not be able to recover in time to participate in the French National Championships and the Tour de France. The date of his return to competition will be announced later" explained his team, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, in a press release.

Just like for the native of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, the Swiss stage race proved fatal for Tao Geoghegan Hart who, after a 3rd place in the general classification of the Tour of Slovenia, struggled in the Swiss mountains due to a virus that ultimately debilitated him to the point of saying goodbye to his Tour glory dreams.

"Unfortunately, in the last 5 days I contracted a slight chest infection that progressively made me feel worse towards the end of the week" explained the 2020 Giro d'Italia winner in an Instagram post.

"At times I feel my body is returning to the levels it was at before getting sick, I definitely see some signs, but it's proving quite difficult to put all the puzzle pieces back together at once. Now I can't wait to rest for a week and then start training consistently before racing again in August".

For the Lidl-Trek rider, like Gaudu and Cosnefroy, the next big goal now, once he regains health and the ability to absorb training loads, could be to be on the starting line of the Vuelta Espana scheduled from August 23rd to September 14th.