Crossing the line at the end of the 19th stage was a battered and bloodied Chris Froome, flanked by the outstanding Wout Poels. The yellow jersey wearer can count himself lucky to have such loyal and capable teammates who were there for him this afternoon when he had a nasty fall.
By Brian Canty
Chris Froome has endured it all this Tour de France and just when it seemed liked he’d come through the worst of what the race could throw, he had another seat-of-the-pants moment.
Descending the penultimate climb of the day before the summit finish up to Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc the Team Sky man hit the deck on a greasy corner and was very lucky not to have done a lot more damage than he did.
He was also very fortunate to have teammates around him at the time and one of them, Geraint Thomas, offered up his bike instinctively so Froome could ride on and regain contact with the group of GC men.
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It was the stuff of nightmares for his team and brought back memories of the Giro d’Italia in May when leader Steven Kruisjwijk crashed while descending on the stage to Risoul and had a three-minute lead at the top of the general classification wiped out. He would finish the race fourth overall.
Froome was luckier than the Dutchman and only lost a handful of seconds, crossing the line in ninth, 36 seconds down on Romain Bardet (Ag2r La Mondiale)
He is still very much in control as he holds a 4’ 11” lead on his nearest challenger with two stages left to go.
Here is the moment the Tour was almost turned on its head!
Chris Froome now holds a #YellowJersey advantage of 4' 11" at @LeTour. Here's the moment he slid out #TDF2016https://t.co/4ekGSlrQtN
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) July 22, 2016
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