Bittersweet day for leader Froome
Chris Froome emerged through the debris of the ninth stage of the Tour de France with his yellow jersey intact, but the race is over for Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas.
Colombia’s Rigoberto Uran won the mountainous 181.5-kilometre stage from Nantua to Chambery but crashes saw Porte and Thomas taken to hospital. Porte’s was the most sickening as he clipped the grass verge on the inside of a bend on the descent down Mont du Chat less than 25km from the finish.
He came off his bike and skidded across the tarmac into Dan Martin, clattering both into the rock face on the other side of the road. He lay motionless on the road for some time being attended to by medics before being taken to hospital.
Martin was saved by his helmet which took the brunt of the impact and was destroyed. Even though he crashed a second time on that descent, he only lost one minute, 15 seconds by the finish.
Thomas had crashed on another descent, made treacherous by rain, earlier in the day, suffering a broken collarbone.
It meant it was a bittersweet day for Froome who, despite increasing his lead and seeing several top rivals lose time, lost his chief Team Sky lieutenant Thomas and good friend Porte.
“I feel bad, it was a really bad, bad crash,” said Froome of Porte’s spill. “And my teammate as well, he’s broken his collarbone. But that image is hard to look at.
“I hope he recovers well because it’s tough to see that.”
On the road, it was a good day for Froome as he extended his lead by a few seconds, thanks mostly to a four-second bonus he took on the line for finishing third. He now leads Fabio Aru by 18 seconds with Frenchman Romain Bardet third at 51 seconds.
“I’m very, very happy with that and still in yellow, but it was really hard today,” Froome said.
“There was a moment in Bardet’s attack when I thought he’d go all the way and maybe take the race lead.
“But in the end there were four of us behind and we worked hard together – thanks to that we caught him.”
Bardet had attacked on the descent of the Mont du Chat, soon after Porte’s spill.
He caught lone escapee Warren Barguil inside the final 15km and left him behind but Froome, Uran, Aru and Jakob Fuglsang worked well together and mopped up first Barguil before catching Bardet with just over 2km left.