After losing time on Saturday’s stage, he said: “My body isn’t responding as I would have liked”. “One second there, we were pouring water over our heads and ice socks down the back, and then the next minute we literally had ice falling from the sky with the hail stones and the temperatures dropped right down to 10 degrees”.
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Nairo Quintana (Movistar) was on Froome’s wheel and the Colombian appeared to be the only rider not to try to stretch the Briton on the concluding ascent.
Earlier in the afternoon, Tinkoff confirmed that Alberto Contador had abandoned stage nine and withdrawn from the Tour due to a fever.
Contador and Valverde launched an old school attack early on, pulling away from the pack and catching a big group of breakaway riders on the climb to the Port de la Bonaigua.
“Several times before the Tour, I said this would be the biggest battle of my career and it’s definitely the case”, he went on.
“I guess people just don’t quite understand how it is when you’re on the limit – it’s just not always possible to keep attacking”.
The Aspin, which was included in the Tour for the 73rd time, was affronted from its longer southern slope, 12 kilometers at an average gradient of 6.5 percent.
More importantly, Froome hasn’t yet showed the explosive climbing ability that saw him ride to overall victory in the 2013 and 2015 editions of the Tour.
Cavendish calculates there are two or three bunch sprint stages left in this year’s Tour, but is pessimistic about his chances of taking the green jersey of points leader outright.
“I’m an aggressive rider, that’s my nature, and I like to attack and fight for the win even if this means getting dropped, instead of sitting behind and fighting for second. Physically, I know where I am and that’s in a good place”. I’m not too bad where I am and we have the rest day tomorrow.
All the way up to Arcalis, Froome was glancing over his shoulder, bracing himself for an acceleration from Quintana, but it never came.
Orica-BikeExchange’s Adam Yates, second overall and only 16 seconds down, was with Froome, as was Irishman Dan Martin of Etixx-QuickStep as he moved up to third, only 19 seconds off yellow.
Froome said his descending style was something he picked up racing team-mates in training, but it invited comparisons to Graham Obree, the Scottish rider who twice broke the world hour record in the 1990s and was known for his unusual positions on the bike. “It’s what I thought before and I’ve seen nothing yet to change my opinion”, added Brailsford. There are some pretty odd tactics going on.
“I needed to get time back so that was what I was thinking about”.
Dutch rider Tom Dumoulin won the ninth leg with a solo breakaway on the beyond-category finishing climb.
Froome came under intense scrutiny past year after a scintillating attack on the first mountain stage of the Tour gave him a decisive advantage over his rivals.
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Froome has not managed to stamp his authority on the Tour this year as he did in his previous two successful yellow jersey tilts. Really, really hard day yesterday and again another tough day today.
