FROOME IS ACE IN THE PACK
We’ve got cards to play and it’s looking good says champ
AFTER heartbreak ridge came bluster on Bastille Day and cycling’s own Watergate.
As Chris Froome recovered from his horrid lights-out finish on an airstrip ramp in the Pyrenees, he insisted he was “still in a great position” to win the Tour de France.
Froome was joined in the top five of the General Classification by his Team Sky minder Mikel Landa (right) and claimed he had been dealt a big card in an enthralling game of poker for the Yellow Jersey.
He said: “It’s a great card for us to play, especially when Astana don’t have the numbers to control the race, and it’s the perfect scenario for us going into the big mountain stages coming up in the final week.”
But Le Tour was hit by a row over refuelling in Thursday’s seismic finish in Peyragudes, where two of Froome’s rivals were clobbered with 20-second time penalties for accepting new water bottles inside the last 12 miles – only for the sanctions to be reversed.
First, chapeau to Froome. He remains just six seconds behind Fabio Aru at the top of the leaderboard. And Spanish engine Landa’s surge into the GC picture, just 1min 9sec off the lead, means Sky are still equipped to give it both barrels in the final week.
Froome said: “I’m still in a great position. I’m only six seconds off Fabio Aru and the pressure is now on his Astana team to control the race.
“It’s quite nice for our guys to have a break now and sit on the wheels of others for a bit.
“Everyone can smell blood. I imagine it could still be an explosive race.”
Warren Barguil (bottom) became the first French stage-winner on Bastille Day since David Moncoutie in 2005, pipping Landa, Alberto Contador and Nairo Quintana in a four-man breakaway to the line.
But Landa has suddenly emerged as a viable Plan B for Sky, and Froome added: “We’ve got a lot of faith in Mikel and today he showed why – he’s now a real threat for the overall title in Paris.
But Froome remains Sky’s squadron leader – and since he should blow away his rivals in next Saturday’s time trial in Marseille, they have no reason to change course.
World governing body UCI’s race jury need to get their act together after their dismal handling of Watergate.
Froome’s former team-mate Rigoberto Uran, just 35secs behind Aru, and New Zealand’s George Bennett both accepted 20-second penalties for taking water bottles from the roadside beyond the last permitted refuelling point.
But when Uran’s Cannondale team complained there was video evidence of Romain Bardet – Thursday’s stage winner and just 19 seconds behind Froome in third place – doing similar, the UCI bottled it.
Instead of hitting Bardet with a 20-second penalty, they withdrew the sanctions against Uran and Bennett. If Bardet had been forced to swallow the same penalty, the French challenge to win their own showpiece bike race for the first time in 32 years might have been holed below the water line.