Terpstra misses Total Direct Energie's Tour de France team

Total Direct Energie named nine riders to its Tour de France long team, with Niki Terpstra not making the cut as he recovers from serious injuries from a training crash.

The team of eight will be chosen from nine riders: Niccolò Bonifazio, Lilian Calmejane, Jérôme Cousin, Fabien Grellier, Romain Sicard, Julien Simon, Geoffrey Soupe, Rein Taaramäe and Anthony Turgis.

These nine riders will head to an altitude camp in Font-Romeu on July 11.

Bonifazio won the bunch sprint on stage 5 in Paris-Nice stage 2 of the Saudi Tour this season. Calmejane won a stage in the 2017 Tour de France, while Taaramäe has won stages in the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España.

Terpstra, a former winner of Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders, was injured in a crash while motor-pacing between Enkhuizen and Lelystad in the Netherlands on Tuesday, June 16. He reportedly swerved to avoid some geese and hit a rock, crashing heavily.

He was airlifted to hospital where doctors confirmed he has a collapsed lung, a concussion, and fractured ribs and a broken collarbone.

It was the 36-year-old's second major crash in a year. He went down in a mass crash during the 2019 Tour de France and fractured his scapula. Earlier in 2019 he suffered a concussion in a crash during the Tour of Flanders.

Terpstra is expected to be out of competition through the end of August, and the Tour de France begins in Nice on August 29.