Team Sky’s Froome hit the deck inside the final 15 kilometres as rain fell late on the 146km stage from Albertville and, though he quickly swapped bikes with Geraint Thomas and got back on his way, his rivals were able to put him under pressure on the final climb of Mont Blanc as the rips in his yellow jersey revealed his scars.
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With two treacherous mountain stages left before the largely ceremonial ride to the Champs Elysees on Sunday, Yates holds the white jersey for best young rider and sits 4:16 behind Froome, with a 21-second lead over Quintana.
Froome finished off the job in 30 minutes and 43 seconds, capturing his second stage win of this Tour.
“I was trying to stay up front and safe and I just hit one of the white lines and I lost my front wheel”.
“I am okay – I’m lucky nothing is seriously injured. I just lost a little skin and banged my knee a bit”. “Obviously we feel like we’re in a bit of a bubble in the race here”.
After winning the Tour of Turkey in 2014, and the San Sebastian single-day classic a year ago, Yates is already being tipped as a future victor of a major tour.
Dumoulin s main competition was always likely to come from the final group of riders, the climbing specialists.
The Movistar rider is fourth overall, 4:37 behind Froome.
” I could see Froome on the front and he was saying chill on the radio but he doesn’t do chill, does he?” What you need to know? “I really started off quite steady and really controlled that first part and then just gave it everything I had over the last part”.
“I wasn’t going to run to the finish but luckily they stopped a few hundred metres later and I got on this (bike), and that was that”. With his jersey torn, blood dripping down his right leg, cuts and bruises on his back and blood on his right elbow, Froome understandably looked uncomfortable on Thomas’ bike.
Yates avoided the crashes but, hanging on the back of the peloton, had looked ready to crack throughout the stage.
“That’s a huge compliment coming from Eddy”, Froome said.
Before the rain began, two-stage victor Tom Dumoulin of Giant-Alpecin hit the deck in a nasty crash which left him with injuries to his left wrist and elbow.
Dutchman Tom Dumoulin, one of the favourites for the Olympic time trial in Rio next month, also crashed with about 62km left before pulling out with a “severe wrist trauma”, according to a race doctor.
Froome has dominated this year’s tour in a way reminiscent of how Lance Armstrong took a stranglehold on the race in the early Noughties. The penultimate leg on Saturday concludes with a tricky descent to Morzine after four more climbs through the Alps.
“I think in the end, if he has a good night, with the physio and everything, he should be OK”, Froome’s mountain helper, Wout Poels said.
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“Mika told me we should try something in the descent from Domancy and we just went”.
