After crashing on stage 19, the British professional cyclist maintained his sizable first-place lead.
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Despite his crash, the race leader extended his overall lead to 4 minutes 11 seconds ahead of Bardet, with Movistar’s Nairo Quintana moving into third overall, 16 seconds down on the Frenchman and 9 seconds ahead of Yates, who drops to fourth.
Froome quickly borrowed a teammate’s bike and kept his then-torn yellow jersey after crossing the finish line 36 seconds behind Bardet, who climbed to second overall.
“I’m okay. I’m lucky, nothing is seriously injured”.
“This is the kind of day when you feel grateful you’ve got four minutes’ advantage, so I could fall back on that”.
“Even though Froomey won Thursday’s mountain time trial and went into yesterday’s stage with a comforting cushion of 3’52” over nearest rival Bauke Mollema, yesterday proved that the Tour is never over until you cross the finish line in Paris.
Froome quickly swapped bikes with teammate Geraint Thomas and remounted, but the series of crashes clearly unsettled the contenders’ group. The two-time champion was clearly in pain after falling off his bike while riding at 45 kph.
Froome said: “I think I have a great advantage with two days to go [in the general classification battle]”. The Dutchman had no team-mates in support – Froome, in contrast, had four men around him at the crucial moment – which meant he struggled horribly to get to the finish line, losing 4min 26sec and dropping from second to 10th overall in one fell swoop.
The final Alpine stage will take the peloton 146km from Megève to Morzine-Avoriaz tomorrow, with the final processional stage taking place in Paris on Sunday (July 24).
While appearing to be nursing an injury after his crash, which also ripped his yellow jersey, Froome powered through to finish safely, Weather conditions wreaked havoc throughout the afternoon, so much so that the Briton actually manage to extend his lead at the summit by 19 seconds.
“I knew the auto was quite a while back and my bike wasn’t rideable, so thanks a lot to Geraint for his bike”.
Australian Richie Porte, who had been climbing so well all Tour, attacked several times on the steep final climb but cracked in the final kilometre and finished 10th, 53sec behind Bardet.
Unlike when he captured his first stage win in last year’s Tour, Bardet wanted to fully enjoy the experience this time.
However, rain then began to fall heavily on the descent down the opposite side and with previously dry roads suddenly soaking, riders started skidding off at nearly every corner.
He was distanced by the leaders on the Col de la Forclaz midway through the stage before being helped back by two Orica-BikeExchange team-mates and a push from Team Sky’s Luke Rowe – although he was later penalised 10 seconds by the race jury for getting unfair assistance.
Team Astana drove a fast, withering pace at the front of the peloton all day, shedding riders until it formed an elite yellow jerseybefore Montee de Bisanne.
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“Tomorrow [Saturday] is going to be really hard and I’m sure that I’m going to be a bit stiff after today”.
