Tour de France: Froome knocked from bike on Mont Ventoux, keeps yellow

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In a scene never before witnessed in the Tour de France, the race leader Chris Froome (Team Sky) was forced to leave his broken Pinarello behind and run up the Mont Ventoux in a tumultuous finale to a shortened stage. Although Froome finished more than a minute behind his rivals for the overall in the Tour de France, the race officials later reversed the time gaps due to the crowd-induced chaos, keeping the Team Sky rider in the maillot jaune.

It was an unprecedented level of mayhem, even for the Tour de France. It began with 125kph winds moving the finish from the moonscape of the summit down the mountain 7km to Chalet Reynard, and ended with roadsides heaving with frenzied fans, all pushing into the road to get a glimpse of the riders.

Froome, Richie Porte (BMC), and Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) were clear of the other contenders when they were swarmed by the crowds outside of the barriers of the final kilometre. A camera motorbike was halted by the crowd, getting a closer-up shot than intended as Porte crashed into it. While Mollema made it around, Froome's bike was broken in the mayhem, and he had to run up the climb until neutral support could give him a bike. But the machine did not fit, and by the time Froome finally got one of his own bikes with 500m to go and rode across the line, he was 1:14 behind the Quintana group and 1:40 behind Mollema.

The judges awarded Porte and Mollema with the same time as Froome, 5:05 behind De Gendt, and 19 seconds ahead of the Quintana group containing all of the top 10 except Dan Martin (Etixx-Quickstep) and Sergio Henao (Sky).

Had the race jury not reversed the gaps, Adam Yates would have claimed the maillot jaune, with Mollema at 9 seconds and Quintana at 14 and Froome in sixth overall at 53 seconds. Now, Froome leads Yates by 47 seconds, having been awarded the time gaps that held at the time of the incident.

"What a final. In the final kilometre, the moto braked suddenly in front of us, and Richie, Bauke and I crashed into it, and then the moto behind me ran over my bike and broke it," Froome said. "I said to myself 'I have no bike'. And I knew the car with my bike was 5 minutes behind on the road, so I need to run.

"I'm very happy with the commissaires' decision. I think it was correct so thank you to them."

More on this story:

• Tour de France: Froome knocked from bike on Mont Ventoux, keeps yellow
• Tour de France: Crashed Froome forced to run up Mont Ventoux
• Tour de France stage 12 - Finish line quotes
• Tour de France: Ventoux stage shortened due to risk of 100km/h winds
• The Tour de France and Mont Ventoux – Gallery
• Tour de France: The unpredictable Mont Ventoux

Adam Yates agreed that the jury made the correct decision. "I wouldn’t really want to take the yellow jersey like that, so I’m happy with the decision," he said. "If I was in Froome’s position and I’d lost the jersey like that, I’d have wanted the same decision as him. It was pretty dangerous in the last kilometre, but the fans make the sport and there’s not many sports where fans can get so close to the athletes. It is what it is. I wouldn’t have wanted to take the jersey like that. Froome is the rightful owner of the yellow jersey."

Other contenders rued the missed opportunity to attack, noting that this Tour de France has been more out of control than ever before.

"The wind on the last climb certainly made it tricky, but there were so many people out there," Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) said. "They made a really big problem. I really don't know what's going on with this Tour. Personally, I don't think it is under control at all. There were a lot of difficulties in the last couple of kilometres because of the position of people. I was feeling good, but it is disappointing."

Even Frenchman Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) was critical of the security at the Tour.

"There were so many motorbikes in the way, it wasn't safe. You had to brake when you were attacking. We need to have a long conversation about security here. It was unacceptable what happened today. I don't know what will happen with the maillot jaune. I have never seen anything like this on a bike race before."

De Gendt's victory overshadowed

Although he is frequently on the attack in the mountains, the win was only De Gendt's second Grand Tour victory after his Giro d'Italia win atop the Stelvio in 2012, but he said both wins were equal in importance.

"I had the feeling that I have to go in the breakaway today," De Gendt said. "We knew it was a day either three guys would go in the break and they would take them back with 20km to go, or there's a big break and my feelings said to go. My feeling was right. I dedicate this to Stig Broeckx. We think about him every day, and we hope that his situation gets better in the next days, weeks or months. We fight for Stig.”

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How it unfolded

With only 178km on the menu of the shortened stage to Mont Ventoux, and the peloton facing howling winds, it was a brave rider who would go on the attack, but there were plenty such men in the peloton.

The attacks flew from the drop of the flag at kilometer zero, and soon there were 14 riders off the front - plenty of help to battle the winds. The group included Bertjan Lindeman and Sep Vanmarcke (Lotto-Jumbo), Stef Clement (IAM Cycling), Serge Pauwels and Daniel Teklehaimanot (Dimension Data), Paul Voss (Bora-Argon 18), André Greipel and Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), Bryan Coquard and Sylvain Chavanel (Direct Energie), Iljo Keisse (Etixx-Quick Step), Dani Navarro and Cyril Lemoine (Cofidis) and Chris Anker Sorensen (Fortuneo-Vital Concept).

Voss punctured out of the group, but found himself in a chase group in no-man's land with Diego Rosa (Astana), Cyril Gautier (AG2R La Mondiale), Tom-Jelte Slagter (Cannondale-Drapac), and Georg Preidler (Giant-Alpecin).

The leaders gained a massive 18:15 by the midpoint of the stage, with all of the riders contributing to the pace. But behind the winds caused havoc in the peloton, splitting it to bits in an exposed section in wicked crosswinds.

The main overall favourites including the BMC duo Van Garderen and Porte, Nairo Quintana, Adam Yates, Dan Martin, Fabio Aru and most of Team Sky with Froome were at the front, but the Frenchmen Warren Barguil (Giant-Alpecin) and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) were caught out together with green jersey holder Peter Sagan (Tinkoff).

Aru had a panic when he was forced to take a bike change from teammate Jakob Fuglsang as the Astana team car was trapped behind the second peloton. He rejoined the lead group after some effort.

The chasing peloton made up ground on the riders in no-man's land on the two smaller climbs with 40km to go, and were closing in on the leaders - they had the gap under eight minutes until Simon Gerrans (Orica-BikeExchange) was blown over in a turn on the descent from the Col des Trois Termes and took down Team Sky's Ian Stannard and Luke Rowe.

Inexplicably, the maillot jaune himself stopped and went back to pace his teammates back through the following cars as the peloton respected the go-slow. They rejoined a few kilometres later, without Stannard, and began the pursuit anew. The brief respite in pace allowed the second peloton to rejoin, bringing Barguil, Pinot and Vincenzo Nibali back into the action.

At the foot of the Ventoux, the breakaway still had nearly nine minutes, and Greipel decided to get a head start on the climb, powering away with 14km to go, but his move was only a boomerang. He was quickly caught and dropped. Soon it was De Gendt, Pauwels and Navarro alone up front. De Gendt was distanced from the leading group with 7km remaining, but rejoined a few kilometres later.

The fireworks from the yellow jersey group came with a probing attack from IAM Cycling's Jarlinson Pantano that was countered by Alejandro Valverde (Movistar). The surge dropped Geraint Thomas out the back, leaving Froome with his main climbers Henao, Poels and Nieve for protection. Nieve was soon dropped, and Quintana inserted himself into the Sky train as they reeled in Valverde.

As Valverde was reeled in, Quintana put in a dig that was marked by Sky, but the acceleration spat Dan Martin (Etixx-Quickstep) out the back, with Daniel Moreno (Movistar) along for company.

Not willing to quit, Quintana put in another dig but was once again shut down by Poels. The clash of the titans whittled the yellow jersey group down to only a few favourites and their main climbing domestiques. Mollema, Mientjes, Yates and Bardet held onto the back for dear life. A telling head shake from Quintana came before Joaquim Rodriguez injected some pace into the yellow jersey group, marked quickly by Valverde. Again, Poels proved too strong and nailed it back. It was not a day for the Colombian to gain time, in fact he would lose contact when Froome himself went with 1.6km to go, marked quickly by Richie Porte (BMC) with Quintana unable to stay on the wheel. Mollema attacked from Quintana's group to make it across to Froome and Porte.

Ahead, De Gendt, having had to chase back to Pauwels and Navarro, showed his strategy was on track as he attacked with 3km to go and distanced his companions. Only Pauwels could keep him in reach, and the Belgian made contact and quickly attacked with 1.9k to go. The two played too much cat and mouse, allowing Navarro to rejoin with 1km to go. De Gendt proved victorious however, but his victory would be forever overshadowed by the incident of the race leader Froome behind. 

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