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Popovych out of Tour de France, Klöden to start

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Yaroslav Popovych (RadioShack)

Yaroslav Popovych (RadioShack) (Image credit: Daniel Benson)
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Andreas Kloden (RadioShack)

Andreas Kloden (RadioShack) (Image credit: Sirotti)

Team RadioShack lost another rider on Tuesday morning, announcing that Yaroslav Popovych will not start today's tenth stage of the  Tour de France from Aurillac to Carmaux. The 31-year-old has been suffering with a fever since Sunday. German Andreas Klöden, the team's only remaining captain, will start the stage despite a sore lower back.

Popovych's condition didn't improve on the rest day, so the team decided to stop him riding further in the Tour de France. He will now undergo further medical tests to discover what is causing his fever.

The Ukrainian was suffering after crashing twice during the fifth stage. “With a lot of character he survived four more stages,” the team said in a statment. “The current illness however makes an end to his Tour de France.”

The team also announced that Andreas Klöden would start stage 10 and that he “hopes for improvement in the coming days.”

The German was involved in Sunday's crash which took out Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana), Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and David Zabriskie (Garmin-Cervelo). He is suffering with lower back bruises and stiffness. Klöden, 36, is the team's highest ranked rider in seventh place, 2:43 behind Thomas Voeckler (Europcar).

RadioShack started the Tour with four captains but two of whom have already left the race with injuries. Jani Brajkovic crashed out of stage five with a broken collarbone, and Chris Horner did not start stage eight due to a severe concussion suffered the previous day. Levi Leipheimer has crashed three times and is now over seven minutes down.