Tom Dumoulin crosses the line in the TT. Initially (in the image on the left) he is one second slower than Chris Froome. But then immediately the timer changes (image on right) to show that he was 1.78 seconds inside Froome's time. The glitch was the difference between Dumoulin winning the stage from Froome.
The Tour de France organisers ASO have said a policeman walking passed the finish line was to blame for a technical glitch on the timing at the end of today's TT stage.
When Froome finished the clock stopped though he still have several metres to ride.
The time that flashed up on screen - 40:50 - was three seconds slower than the official time he was credited with.
The error was only noticed when Tom Dumoulin came in to complete his TT effort. The time that flashed up on screen was one second slower than Froome's.
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And so for an instant it looked like Froome had won the stage from Dumoulin by one second.
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However, Dumoulin's time was then instantly corrected, showing he was in fact 1.78 seconds faster than Froome and so the stage winner over the Team Sky man.
Spokesman for ASO Guillaume Kleszcz said a policeman walked past the finish line sensor just before Froome finished, and this stopped the clock that provides the time to the TV feed.
However, he said the timing system also has a mechanism to correct any such issues.
When Dumoulin crossed the line, his time was initially judged off Froome's incorrect time.
But then the system immediately corrected itself and judged Dumoulin's time off Froome's official time.
It means after initially showing Dumoulin had lost the stage by a second, it showed he had won it by the same margin.
Above, Froome with a few metres left to ride to the finish line, yet his time has already stopped at 40mins 50.41secs. His official time was 40mins 53secs. Below, he has now crossed the line and his time is the same. The red arrows are pointed to the same line on the road offering some indication of how far he still was from the finish line when his clock had already stopped on screen.
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