The catastrophic amount of time lost by Froome meant he surrendered his lead to fellow Brit Adam Yates, however he confirmed afterwards in a tweet that the race organisers had reviewed the incident and essentially made a decision to hand the Sky rider a default time that means he now leads the way by 47 seconds from Yates after stage 12.
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Froome was in the yellow jersey during the race and it appeared that he would lose it after the crash, but a review concluded that he was still on top by 48 seconds.
French sources quoted Froome saying: “I had no bike – I knew that the team vehicle with a replacement bike was five minutes behind, so I had to run”.
“I don’t know. Somehow we’ve gotten this scene – everyone just wants to get on TV for a party”.
And just a few weren’t that complimentary at all about Froome’s running style. I knew the auto was stuck and was five minutes behind. “It was the right decision”.
“Froome leads the tour with a time of 57h 11′ 33” ahead of Adam Yates of Orica-Bikeexchange, who is 47′ adrift.
Colombian rider, Nairo Quintana (Trek-Segafredo), who benefited from the crash, rose to third 0:00:14 behind Yates. “I’d rather take it with my legs and not after a crash in a bad situation”.
Yates himself has been in the wars during this year’s tour, when he was hit by the flamme rouge at the climax of stage seven.
Froome began the day 28 seconds clear of Yates and was looking to extend that advantage when he attacked alongside former team-mate Porte, now of BMC, late on a stage which was won from the breakaway by Lotto-Soudal’s Thomas De Gendt.
It seems race officials are letting Froome keep the yellow jersey after that chaos.
“The motorbike could not progress and there was a pile-up in which Chris’s bike was broken”, said Team Sky sports director Nicolas Portal.
The French aren’t having much joy on their national day in recent years, with the last Bastille Day victor from the home nation back in 2005 when David Moncoutié was victorious.
“There were too many people in the last kilometer”, De Gendt said. “Now I’m just looking forward to tomorrow’s time trial”. “Things have got to change, and I can’t believe there weren’t barriers there”.
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Lotto-Soudal teammates Andre Greipel and Thomas De Gendt are part of a 13-man breakaway early in the stage with a lead of almost 10 minutes on the pack.
