Tour de France halted for 20 minutes after massive, gnarly crash takes out top riders

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On Monday's stage three of the Tour de France there was a massive crash that took down a large number of riders and forced the abandon of at least two top riders - Simon Gerrans and Tom Dumoulin, who was in third place overall, NBC Sports reported.

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Gerrans was a favorite to win the stage, which finishes on the super-steep Mur de Huy.

It also brought down the race leader, Fabian Cancellara, who went flying.

tour de france crash

NBCSN

Here's Cancellara, in yellow, going down:

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cancellara

NBCSN

In a very rare move, the race organizers stopped the Tour de France, or "neutralized" it.

Veteran cycling commentator and former pro Paul Sherwen said on NBC Sports that he could not remember a time when Tour organizers stopped the race because of a crash.

The yellow jersey got back up and was riding in the pack, but he was seen going back to his team car.

The crash took place at high speed about 45 or 46 kilometers to go on a slight downhill.

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More to come. We'll keep updating this post with the latest news.