Healy was in the same main chase group as Pogačar after a fraught, hilly stage around the southern city of Toulouse when the UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader was thrown off balance by another rider's manoeuvre, falling some four kilometres from the line.

Tadej Pogacar has said he hopes Ben Healy “feels tired” ahead of the duo’s upcoming battle over the yellow jersey, after the EF Education-EasyPost rider became the first Irishman in 38 years to wear the maillot jaune.

Norway’s Jonas Abrahamsen won an incident-packed stage 11 at the Tour de France on Wednesday, outsprinting Mauro Schmid in Toulouse. Behind them, race favorite Tadej Pogačar crashed in the final minutes, but did not lose any time to his general classification rivals after they sportingly waited until he rejoined them.