Rider quits Tour, but team makes him race

Eymet - Costa Rican Andrey Amador decided to quit the Tour de France in the early hours of Wednesday morning, only to be "convinced" hours later by his Movistar team to continue.

The 30-year-old team-mate of Tour contender Nairo Quintana took to social media in the night to announce he would be pulling out of the race, but it seems his team hadn't been consulted.

"Tomorrow I'm putting an end to bearing this pain. Go on lads," he wrote on Twitter, referring to the pain he's been suffering in his knee since crashing on the second stage more than a week ago.

"It's difficult but we're leaving the Tour with a knee problem," he'd added on Instagram.

But he hadn't told his team, who were stunned to discover the news, yet little willing to accept it.

"I was also surprised to learn he was quitting," Movistar's sports director Jose Luis Arrieta told AFP.

"Andrey had said he was overcoming the pain, but he couldn't and that he'd woken up due to the fierce pain in his knee.

"It might have been bad posture, but then with treatment from the physios and the osteopath, he's feeling better and is going to see if things return to normal during the stage."

Arriesta insisted that "it wasn't difficult to convince him" to carry on.

"If he announced he was quitting it's because he really was in pain," he added.

Movistar could ill afford another rider pulling out after Quintana's chief mountain support Alejandro Valverde quit during the opening stage after breaking his kneecap in a crash.

Quintana had a poor first week at the Tour and is down in eighth overall, at 2:13 off race leader Chris Froome.