Tour de France 2019 news - Ineos to start first in Tour TTT after Geraint Thomas crash

The crash meant that Team Ineos finished bottom of the classification, after he took a tumble just under a mile from the finishing line in Brussels.

There is no indication that Thomas is seriously injured as a result. However, starting first in a team time trial is a disadvantage as they cannot appraise the time needed to compete with their rivals.

Thomas said: "It's a big day, a team trial, so hopefully we can all rest up tonight and then give it a good go tomorrow.

"Obviously, we'll go 100 per cent tomorrow and try to win the stage, obviously. But there's a lot of other good teams so we'll see what we can do."

Thomas suffered in the aftermath of a crash that also took out Dylan Groenewegen, riding for Jumbo-Visma, as his bike caught a crash barrier to halt his progress.

The Welshman confirmed that he was largely unharmed by the fall: "Yeah, I'm fine. We were through 3k to go so we were slowly drifting back just to try to get a bit of space if there was a crash and obviously… yeah. We avoided it but we just ran out of road.

"That happens, because the barriers were sticking out as well – typical – but I'm fine though. I was going pretty slow by the time I hit them, so I just toppled over. So yeah, it's all good."

Thomas has suffered more serious problems in crashes before, such as one that forced him out of the Tour de Suisse in July, and in 2017 he had to quit both the Tour de France and Giro d'Itaia.

"Like I say, I gave myself enough space and avoided the actual crash but with the barriers there was nowhere to go," Thomas continued.

"It's just one of those things. The main thing is that it didn't do any damage. The bike took the hit and then I just toppled over."