The crashes of this year's Tour de France finally took their toll on Anthon Charmig on Saturday, with the writing on the wall early in stage 14 when the Uno-X Mobility was dropped as soon as the climbing dug in .
It was a day where the ascents came quickly and regularly, with the opening first category 1 climb of Grand Ballon topping out at just 37km from the start, and then there were the category 2 and two category 1 climbs to follow. Even then, it wasn't a profile that would usually be expected to trip Charmig up, with the Danish rider capable in the hills and certainly not among the likely suspects to fall away from the bunch early, but these were no ordinary circumstances. The rider had first hit the deck in stage 2 and then on stage 12 got caught up in a horrible high speed crash within the final kilometre that also brought many other riders unstuck, including two of his teammates Søren Wærenskjold and Jonas Abrahamsen.
