Chris Froome (Team Sky) had to fight to save his Tour de France leader's yellow jersey on the roads through the Massif Central to Puy-en-Velay after a mechanical problem at the foot of the key category one climb with 36km to go and attacks from his rivals pushed him to the limit.
Froome was 45 seconds behind his rivals at one point but managed to close the gap with a huge effort and some vital help from his teammate, including Mikel Landa, who dropped back to ensure Froome was back on before the top of the climb.
Froome later suggested he had suffered a broken spoke in his wheel. It could have cost him the race.
"If I didn't get back on, I wouldn't have expected to be in yellow this evening. I had to get back on over the top or it was game over for me," Froome admitted.
ADVERTISEMENT
"It was a stressful moment. I wasn't sure if I'd get back on again. It was panic stations. It was if I had to attack to get back on. I had to go very deep, I had no option. If I didn't go over climb with favourites it would have been a danger. I had to put in a big effort as the team did, they all emptied themselves and I'm very grateful for that."
Froome was forced to stop at the foot of the 8.3km Col de Peyra Tailarde climb with 36km left to race. Romain Bardet's AG2R La Mondiale team was already driving the group of overall contenders and so the race was very much on.
Waving his hand and realising something was wrong with his back wheel, Froome got a wheel from teammate Michal Kwiatkowski but had lost 45 seconds and faced arguably the biggest chase of his career.
Enjoying the rest day the right side of the GC
No time for partisan booing and polemics
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2uyXI2A
No comments:
Post a Comment