Tour de France organisers were forced to stop the race just over 100km into the third stage on Monday after leader Fabian Cancellara was caught up in a massive crash.
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Rodriguez, a ex- victor of the Fleche Wallonne one-day classic that also finishes on the Mur, accelerated away to victory but behind him, Froome proved the strongest of the rest to finish second with Frenchman Alexis Vuillermoz a surprise third.
“I definitely didn’t wake up this morning and think I’d be in yellow tonight”, said 30-year-old Froome.
“We’ve been out there, looked at the cobbles, I’m quite happy riding them and quite looking forward to that stage”. “A huge thank you to my teammates today”. “They turned themselves inside out to keep me at the front”.
The 34-year-old Swiss veteran took advantage of the four-second bonus he earned with his third-place finish to claim the yellow jersey.
Froome had better luck this time, gaining 11 seconds on Nibali and Quintana and 18 seconds on Contador.
Tyler Farrar from Wenatchee is in 138th place.
Froome’s return to his first lead in a three-week stage race since the 2013 Tour de France comes hard on the heels of Sunday’s spectacular breakaway alongside Contador, which allowed Froome to move into the top 10 overall.
“We joined our forces with (Nibali’s) Astana (team) and kept the gap closer than it could have been”, Quintana said.
According to one cycling official, the race organizers reportedly halted the race because there were no doctors or ambulances left at that moment to care for the riders.
Chris Froome assumed the yellow jersey in the Tour de France. Bonnet reportedly suffered a broken neck vertebra and will need surgery, and Dumoulin needed to be taken to the hospital, as well.
Inevitably, the disruption changed the complexion of the stage, with the peloton taking time to get back up to speed after racing resumed with 50 kilometres remaining.
Race director Christian Prudhomme briefly neutralised, and then stopped, the race, despite protestations from a number of teams, including Team Sky.
Finally, about a dozen riders surged ahead. Last year, Contador lost almost three minutes to Nibali on the Tour’s pavé stage, and as Froome said: “It’s a stage where anything can happen”.
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“There have been nerves and stress every day”, Contador said. The 223.5-kilometer (138.9-mile) ride features seven cobblestone sections spread over more than 13 kilometers (8 miles).
