The 2011 Tour de France is not yet halfway over, but with a series of debilitating crashes and a doping scandal after only nine stages, the legendary race has been anything but uneventful.
Stage 10 on Tuesday, although marred by what The New York Times calls a "sizable pileup" that left no rider seriously injured, was a welcome reprieve from the chaos of the first nine stages.
On the tour's first day, a rider hit a spectator, what commentator Phil Liggett called "a massive pileup."
A motorcycle hit a rider in the tour's fifth stage, but the more serious collision with a Tour vehicle came in Stage 9, when a French television car hit Juan Antonio Flecha of Team Sky. He then hit Vacansoleil's Johnny Hoogerland, sending him hurtling him into a barbed wire fence.
An earlier crash on Sunday involved dozens of riders -- six of whom pulled out of the race -- VeloNews reports. That crash ended Alexandre Vinokourov's dreams of wearing the yellow jersey, as the 37-year-old Astana rider has said that this would be his final Tour de France.
The Guardian reports that Vinokourov on Tuesday had surgery on his broken femur.
Even Alberto Contador, who's won the race the last three years, has crashed four times, AFP reports.
And on Monday, Russian rider Alexandr Kolobnev withdrew from the race after testing positive for a banned substance.
By Tuesday, at least 20 riders had pulled out of the race. Andre Greipel of Germany won Tuesday's stage, although Thomas Voeckler maintains the overall lead.
Stage 11 begins on Wednesday and is the last stage before the riders head into the Pyrenees.
Check out the slideshow below for pictures and video of some of the crashes at the 2011 Tour de France.
