Thomas in line to win Tour
SAINT-LARY-SOULAN, France — His tongue dangling from his mouth, his pedal stroke strained, Chris Froome’s hopes of a record-tying fifth Tour de France title this year slowly drifted away.
Up amid the thin and misty air of the Col du Portet — rated the second-toughest climb in the race’s history — Froome cracked on the feared 17th stage through the Pyrenees Mountains on Wednesday, solidifying Sky teammate Geraint Thomas’s hold on the leader’s yellow jersey.
“Froomey said on the radio (at) maybe 5K or 4K to go that he wasn’t feeling super,” Thomas said after increasing his lead to nearly two minutes over Tom Dumoulin. “That gave me confidence, because I knew if Froomey suffered, everyone suffered.
“I didn’t want him to have a bad day like he did, but it just gave me confidence knowing someone of Froomey’s stature was struggling, and I just knew I would be able to respond to the attacks.”
Froome finished eighth — 1 minute, 35 seconds behind stage winner Nairo Quintana — and dropped from second to third overall, a distant 2:31 adrift of Thomas. Froome’s day then went from bad to worse as he crashed when police mistook him for a fan on the way down the mountain, with his bodyguard also on a bike.
Froome had put a black raincoat over his racing uniform to keep warm, and when police ordered him to stop, he lost control. Team Sky said he was not injured in the incident, which came a day after police used tear gas to disperse a farmers’ protest that had blocked the road with bales of hay. Froome was among a large group of riders whose eyes needed treatment due to the tear gas.
He has been a repeated target of fans after he was cleared of doping five days before the race began. The four-time champion had been racing under the cloud of a potential ban for using twice the permitted level of salbutamol during his victory at the Vuelta a Espana last September.
Froome said he has been repeatedly spat at since the race started, and that spectators have punched him and tried to make him fall off his bike.
He is attempting to match the Tour record of five victories shared by Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Indurain and Eddy Merckx, but he appeared to concede defeat in this edition.