The 142nd triumph of his professional career put the Briton in outright second place on the list of all-time Tour stage winners ahead of Bernard Hinault (28).
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He caught everyone by surprise, commentators and fans included, with a curious technique where he slipped off his saddle and onto the bike’s central bar to gain aerodynamic benefits, yet still managing to pedal furiously.
The 35-year-old Cummings broke away from the peleton with a group of 29 riders that included overall leader Greg Van Avermaet of Belgium and Giro d’Italia victor Vincenzo Nibali.
“We’ve got a really big weekend coming up and there’s a lot of hard racing to come”, said Briton Froome, 31.
Team manager Dave Brailsford praised Froome’s ingenuity and said this proved Sky aren’t the boring team they’re often made out to be.
Although that was on the track, he too adopted a odd cramped position that gave him an aerodynamic boost before developing another, the “Superman”, when his first position was banned.
But all that almost changed on Friday when a freakish series of events near the end of Stage 7 led to one of the strangest pile-up situations perhaps in the history of the Tour.
Froome said he didn’t have a name for his position, though.
Froome said his daring downhill attack had been a risk but something he’d come up with on the spur of the moment.
“Julian [his team-mate Julian Alaphilippe] gave everything to help me on the first climb, so chapeau to him. 20 seconds, it’s not a huge margin but I’ll take every second I can get at this point”.
“I don’t give a shit what people say”, he said with trademark defiance.
Having spent the opening week content to bide his time alongside key race rivals such as Nairo Quintana in the peloton, the two-time victor now jumps from fifth in the general classification to lead Le Tour by 16 seconds ahead of Adam Yates and Joaquim Rodriguez.
Yates, 23, suffered cuts to his face and needed two stitches in his chin after the inflatable arch indicating the final kilometre of Friday’s seventh stage collapsed on top of him. It’s a good thing it was just me on my own. He finished 1:41 behind Froome and is now more than 3min behind in the overall standings.
Froome himself is expecting time gaps.
Having avoided losing time in the first third of the race, the 26-year-old FDJ team leader entered the Pyrenees with high morale.
“In the last part it was me who didn’t pay attention”. After a first attack by Frenchman Romain Bardet fizzled out, Froome counterattacked but failed to drop Nairo Quintana in the first skirmishes among the leading contenders.
Pinot was joined by Alberto Contador’s Tinkoff teammate, Rafal Majka, and time trial specialist Tony Martin as riders climbed the Tourmalet for the 84th time in the Tour’s history. “I just thought I’d see what I could do”.
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Kreuziger is 12th overall, 34 seconds back.
