Froome extends Tour lead on subdued day

VALLON PONT-D’ARC: Chris Froome turned the screw on his Tour de France rivals when he took second place in yesterday’s windswept individual time trial behind Tom Dumoulin as the race continued under heightened security and in a low-key mood after the deadly Nice attack.

Organisers had debated whether the stage should be cancelled, and officials observed a minute’s silence before the first rider went down the ramp. There was another minute of silence at the podium ceremony after the stage.

Holland’s Dumoulin clocked 50 minutes and 15 seconds, beating Froome by 1:03.

The Briton, however, extended his overall race lead to 1:47 over another Dutchman, Bauke Mollema, who moved up to second but lost 51 seconds to the Team Sky rider.

Froome’s compatriot Adam Yates dropped from second to third, 2:45 off the pace after battling strong winds.

Colombia’s Nairo Quintana lost 2:04 on the day to Froome, to slip from third to fourth overall, 2:59 off the pace before a tough final week in the Alps.

The 13th stage of the signature event of the country’s sporting summer began at 7.05am local time, with its publicity caravan – usually playing loud music to energise the thousands lining the route – silenced for the day.

A gunman at the wheel of a heavy truck ploughed into a crowd celebrating France’s national day in the southern city of Nice late on Thursday, killing at least 84 people and injuring scores in what President Francois Hollande called a terrorist act.

“I woke up this morning and learnt something terrible had happened. It’s an extremely sad day. So it was a stage with two sides,” said Dumoulin after his second stage win this year.

“There was a question this morning whether we could start. And I think it was right to go on racing. It’s horrific what happened but we cannot let terrorists decide on how we should be living. “Two hours before my start it was decided to race and I decided to do everything I could to race well because that’s the only thing I can do… I did a good time. I cannot say anything about the others. It was a very good TT for me.”

France’s Thibaut Pinot, who was third in 2014, but dropped out of contention in the first mountain stage this year, abandoned the race because of illness.

Froome lacked the juice to beat Dumoulin but showed no ill effects from the crash in the finale to Thursday’s 12th stage, when he retained the yellow jersey thanks to a jury decision that cancelled the time he had lost in the incident.