On paper, the stage had appeared to set up well for sprinters.
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Adam Yates, the 23-year-old riding for Australia’s Orica-Bike Exchange team, is in second place overall after a breakthrough performance that prompted Froome to tip him as a possible podium finisher.
“It’s the most iconic climb in this race but at the end of the day it just wouldn’t be safe for the riders”, said Froome, who was the stage victor when the Tour last scaled Ventoux’s barren, 1,909-meter (6,263-foot) peak in 2013. He never relinquished the lead. But if they can prevent Froome from setting the pace by forcing him to respond to a series of repeated accelerations, they might be able to keep him in check-and perhaps even cause him to crack.
Overall favorites Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana finished in the main pack during the first stage in the Pyrenees.
Froome’s victories in 2013 and 2015 were marked by stage wins on the first summit finish of each Tour. Caught far behind in the peloton when Froome made his move, the Colombian made no effort to bridge the gap. I have to go day by day and see a possibility for attack.
“We were just trying to ride face down so the hail didn’t hit our faces”, added Froome, who took the yellow jersey with a downhill attack and stage win a day earlier. “It gets really risky for the guys behind you”. “I’m glad I did”.
Stage victor Britain’s Stephen Cummings rides breakaway during the seventh stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 162.5 kilometers (100.7 miles) with start in L’Isle-Jourdain and finish in Lac de Payolle, France, Friday, July 8, 2016.
Television cameras caught the moment that he pulled over, handed his bike to a mechanic and then waved to spectators before being driven away in his team vehicle.
“Tactically, [being in yellow] puts the shoe on the other foot”, Froome said. It’s up to other teams now to have to go out there and try and gain back time that they’ve lost already.
Greg Van Avermaet of Belgium, who was in a breakaway with Cummings, held on to the yellow jersey he claimed two days earlier. “No other team has made any attempt whatsoever to control the race”.
The defending champion is hoping for another uneventful ride from Carcassonne to Montpellier on Wednesday as he steels himself for a battle between the yellow jersey favourites on the fearsome Mont Ventoux on Thursday and a key time trial 24 hours later. “We’ve just got to see, the race is only going to get harder from now, and Movistar is also such a strong team”.
He went into the race aiming for a top-ten overall and exits the first block third in the general classification. This race will undoubtedly be decided in the last four days before Paris, all of them big mountain stages in the Alps.
The Irishman lives in Andorra and has a liking for the French Pyrenees, having won a Tour stage there in 2013. “All the way up until the last km …”
“I think Richie (Porte) was thinking the same thing”. Maybe he’s saving it for one big move’.
The stony-faced Colombian is famously hard to read on the bike and has given little away so far.
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The 25-year-old is over two hours and 20 minutes behind Froome. But he’d left his run too late, eventually falling one minute short of the race overall. His unbelievable descent helped extend his lead to a comfortable 21-seconds by the finish line.
