SHATTERED
Fading Froome concedes title and vows to help Thomas stay in yellow
The wacky races at the Tour de France continued yesterday as Chris Froome was knocked off his bike by a gendarme after the race was over and Geraint Thomas survived an attempt by a spectator to pull him from his bike, just as he attacked to increase his overall lead.
Both incidents happened on the huge final climb to the summit of the Col du Portet in the French Pyrenees, the highest point in this year’s race. After losing ground in the final two kilometres of the stage, Froome descended from the finish line to his team bus but crashed after he was mistaken for a fan by an over-zealous policeman and hauled off the road.
Team Sky described it as a misunderstanding and said Froome, who was pictured being grabbed by the arm by the policeman, was unhurt.
Later, after the finish to the stage, in which Thomas fended off a series of attacks to move further clear of both Froome and Tom Dumoulin, pictures emerged on social media of a fan reaching out to grab Thomas by the arm as he accelerated towards the finish line.
A day earlier, Thomas and Froome were temporarily blinded by pepper spray that had drifted downwind after police had tried to break up a protest by farmers.
While Team Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford described the atmosphere in the Pyrenees as ‘quieter’, there is no doubt that resentment towards Team Sky’s domination of the Tour continues. But with Froome conceding he has little chance of winning after falling further behind yesterday, that tension may ease a little.
Yesterday, contrary to expectations, it was Froome who weakened rather than his Welsh team-mate. As Froome struggled, Thomas rode on with Dumoulin and Primoz Roglic, to further strengthen his claim towards overall victory in Paris on Sunday.
‘I think I am in a good position,’ Thomas said. ‘But I am not going to change my approach. I’m going to take it day by day still, just trying to recover as much as possible and do all the small things right. As soon as you start getting carried away, that’s when it goes downhill.’
But he acknowledged that watching Froome struggle had proved an inspiration.
‘Froomey said on the radio, maybe with four or five kilometres to go, that he wasn’t feeling super and that gave me confidence,’ Thomas said, ‘Because if Froomey was suffering, everyone was suffering.’
Froome said the priority now was to make sure that Thomas keeps hold of the yellow jersey.
‘It was a tough day, an intense day, but I’ve got no regrets,’ he said. ‘“G” has ridden such an amazing race, he deserves to be in yellow and fingers crossed he holds it now until Paris. We just need to look after him now for these next few days.’
World time trial champion Dumoulin has emerged as Thomas’s biggest threat to overall victory, particularly with Saturday’s final time trial expected to be pivotal. The Dutchman said: ‘Thomas was stronger than I was and I have to deal with that. I saw Froome was in difficulty but I didn’t know if it was a bluff so I waited a bit with my attack.
‘I tried but I didn’t have the legs to drop Thomas and Roglic.’
Brailsford praised his two leaders for their temperament and resilience, despite all the furore around Team Sky.
‘These two guys deserve so much credit for the way they have handled themselves,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had to manage them at all — they have worked it out for themselves, and that takes some doing. But they have been round the block so many times, they don’t get distracted by anything.’
Meanwhile, Brailsford has apologised for suggesting earlier in the week that spitting was a ‘French cultural thing’.
UCI president David Lappartient accused Brailsford of ‘fuelling the fire’ by criticising the behaviour of spectators as uniquely French.
But Brailsford said yesterday: ‘I’m a Francophile. I think anybody who knows me knows that wasn’t my intention but I was pretty agitated about the attention we were getting.
‘Of course I don’t believe that spitting is a French cultural thing, but my point was that we only get that kind of thing at the Tour de France.’