CYCLING
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FORMER podium finisher Frank Schleck will miss the Tour de France due to a knee injury, his Trek team says.
He is suffering from inflammation of a ligament and a problem with the bone.
"Chronic pain in the right knee has forced the management and medical staff of the team to pull Frank Schleck from the Tour de France roster," a Trek statement on Tuesday said.
Schleck - whose now-retired younger brother Andy won the Tour in 2010 - was third in 2011, fourth in 2009 and fifth in 2008 but he has more recently found good results increasingly hard to come by.
But the Tour still remained a major objective for the 35-year-old, even if he had no chance of winning it.
"This is a big disappointment for me, of course, but it had been in the air for a while now," said Schleck, who pulled out of the final stage timetrial at the Tour of Switzerland on Sunday because of the knee.
"The pain never really lessened and the only way to let it heal would have been to take complete rest."
He first injured it in a crash at Liege-Bastogne-Liege in April.
