Giro d'Italia champion Ryder Hesjedal is the big-name casualty from Friday's sickening crashes that saw a large swathe of the peloton hit the ground hard to incur worrying injuries.

The Canadian got caught up in Friday's huge crash forcing him to abandon after sustaining what his Garmin-Sharp team described as "a massive haematoma on his left hip and leg".

Ahead of Stage 7 on Saturday, Garmin-Sharp directeur sportif Jonathan Vaughters declared: "We figured his haematoma would go down overnight, but it didn't. The problem is to the degree that he can't actually bend his leg. He's in a pretty quiet sombre mood this morning, there wasn't a whole lot of debate (about his participation)."

American team-mate Tom Danielson (pictured) also didn't start this morning in Tomblaine thanks to numerous injuries including a dislocated shoulder, together with Robbie Hunter, leaving the Garmin-Sharp team in tatters.

Dan Martin is the only GRS rider who hasn't been involved in a crash thus far and Vaughters added, "You have to come up with new objectives. You can't just ride along in the peloton.

"Once we get past the rest day and have been able to recover a little bit, then we'll hope to start playing an open and aggressive game."

The 31-year-old Hesjedal said: "It's very disappointing to leave the Tour this way. I was in good form and feeling comfortable, just really settling into the first week with an eye on the mountains.

"I'll go home, keep working with the medical staff on my recovery, and re-focus everything on the Olympics."

There were 182 riders left at the Saturday start line with Amets Txurruka, Hubert Dupont, Oscar Freire, Maarten Wynants, Imanol Erviti and Jose Ivan Gutierrez also out of the race with just under a week gone.

Triple world champion Freire and Wouter Poels both broke ribs and suffered internal injuries on Friday, however they got back on the saddle to finish the stage bravely before withdrawing.

An astonishing 10 of the 22 teams in Le Tour are now at least one man short with Garmin-Sharp and Movistar three men down, while Euskaltel and Rabobank have been trimmed by two riders each.

Two-time 2012 stage winner Andre Greipel started on Saturday, despite his shoulder woe, but serial breakaway rider Anthony Delaplace withdrew soon after leaving Tomblaine due to a fractured wrist.

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