This slipped my notice in the news following Stage 4’s team time trial: American Ted King, a young rider for Cannondale, was pulled from the race for falling too far behind the leader’s time: hors delai or roughly ‘past deadline.’ The cut-off is 25-percent of the time leader’s time for the day. Phil and Paul discussed it a bit during stage 5, saying that it was an unnecessarily harsh judgment and that the race jury makes allowances for courage when weighing decisions like this. In cycling, courage officially counts.
Poor guy! He’d separated his shoulder in the crash resulting from the confusion of the changing finish line in stage 1, then ridden for 3 days in pain from the injury. He couldn't ride his time-trial bike in stage 4 because it made him put too much weigh on his elbows in the aero position. So while he did fall away from the rest of his Cannondale team furing the time trial (which happens to every team, he continued on alone and finished the stage, in which stage winner Orica Green-Edge set a record for their pace. Seven seconds too slow!
VeloNews: Ted King cut from Tour de France due to TTT finish time