Sunweb's Chris Hamilton did not stand out in the elite men's road race at the Australian Road Championships over the weekend. Just before the race, 24-year-old Chris Hamilton revealed that he ruptured his testicle in a training crash, ending his summer in Australia before it even started, including his participation in next week's Tour Down Under. [Hamilton, who won the white jersey as the best young athlete at last year's Tour Down Under, posted on Instagram.

He explained that he crashed while riding on a bike path during training between Christmas and New Year's.

"Nothing [was broken], but I ruptured my testicles anyway because someone kept trying to ask what I did," he said.

Hamilton, from Bendigo, Victoria, joined Sunweb in 2017 from Australian Continental team Avanti IsoWhey Sport, winning the under-23 national championship road race in 2016 and the youth Herald Sun Tour that same year. He won the category and finished 8th overall, impressing the Dutch WorldToursted.

He competed in his first Grand Tour in his first year with Sunweb, the 2017 Vuelta a España, finishing 121st. He then competed twice in the Giro d'Italia in 2018 and last year, finishing 34th overall with a 9th place finish on stage 17 from Val di Sole to Ante Selva, which was won by AG2R's Nance Peters.

"At the moment it is unknown how long it will take to recover, all I can say at this stage is that the surgery to make some repairs went well, and we will know more in the follow-up next week," Hamilton said of his current injury.

"I'm quite shocked that I'm going to miss the Aussie summer, I've had a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to getting back to work.