Peter Sagan of Tinkoff-Saxo is still looking for his first stage win of this year’s Tour de France, finishing second for the fifth time in the race despite a terrific descent to the finish of Stage 16 in Gap as he tried to chase down the day’s victor, Ruben Plaza of Lampre-Merida.
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Thomas collided with another rider during a descent and was thrown into a ditch 7.5km from the finish but was eventually able to remount.
Sky will however be without the services of British champion Peter Kennaugh in the mountains, who abandoned during today’s stage after struggling with illness for several days.
As you can see, Thomas found himself in an unenviable position heading into the turn. Subsequently, he went headlong into a telephone pole and stumbled down an embankment before coming to a rest.
“I just got taken out”, he said.
Froome’s performances have been closely scrutinised, particularly his win to La Pierre-Saint-Martin, and France 2 broadcast its own expert analysis after the 15th stage to say the 30-year-old had an “abnormally high” power profile.
Amazingly he recovered to finish 38 seconds behind the group of main contenders as Team Sky colleague Chris Froome maintained his lead of three minutes 10 seconds over nearest challenger Nairo Quintana.
“He’s OK”, Froome said.
The peloton, led by Team Sky, was more than 12 minutes adrift and drifting further behind as first Adam Hansen (Lotto-Soudal) attacked. That included Lance Armstrong having to ride through the French country-side in order to avoid a falling Joseba Belocki in 2003 and the aforementioned Froome nearly getting taken out by Alberto Contador in 2013. “No one lets me get away”.
Nibali gained only 28secs on the Froome group to remain nearly eight minutes behind.
Greg van Avermaet (BMC Racing), who won the stage to Rodez ahead of Sagan last Friday, did not start as his wife is to give birth imminently.
Sagan risked everything on the descent in pursuit of a victory which instead went to Plaza.
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As he crossed the line, Plaza sucked his right thumb as a wink to his young son.
