Belgian Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) won the 12th stage of the 2016 Tour de France, a 178-km ride from Montpellier ending on the Mont Ventoux on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Chris Froome lost his overall leader’s yellow jersey after an incident involving a motorbike left him without a bike in a chaotic finale of the 12th stage on Thursday.
The Briton’s bike was broken in a pile-up close to the finish and the Team Sky rider began running up the slopes of the Mont Ventoux before grabbing a service bike which did not work.
Froome was then given a spare Team Sky bike on which he completed the 178-km stage, losing over 1:30 to his main rivals.
BMC rider Richie Porte, who was leading Froome and Dutchman Bauke Mollema (Trek Segafredo), crashed into a TV motorbike that was held up by the crowd on the road.
Mollema and Froome also tumbled and the Briton’s bike was broken in the incident.
Froome had been the strongest of the top favourites in a stage shortened because of violent winds at top of the Ventoux, dropping main rival Nairo Quintana of Colombia with about 3km left as only Porte and Mollema could follow his pace.
Without the incident, the double Tour champion was set to extend his overall lead.
“Awaiting jury decision…,” defending champion Froome tweeted.
Briton Adam Yates (Orica-Bike Exchange) is the new overall leader, nine seconds ahead of Mollema with Quintana (Movistar) 14 seconds off the pace, according to provisional results.
Froome dropped to sixth, 53 seconds behind Yates.
“The motorbike could not progress and there was a pile-up in which Chris’s bike was broken,” said Team Sky sports director Nicolas Portal.
“It was a nightmare.”
Portal added he was also held up behind the race stewards and could not drive up to his rider so that his mechanic could hand him a spare bike.
“It’s an incident created by the event. There are more and more people lining up the road. It’s got nothing to do with sport,” the Frenchman said.
“It was crazy. On a 200-metre portion there were hundreds of spectators blocking the road.” (From Reuters: Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Martyn Herman and Pritha Sarkar)
Stage 12 Brief Results:
- Thomas De Gendt (Belgium / Lotto) 4:31:51″
- Serge Pauwels (Belgium / Dimension Data) +2″
- Daniel Navarro (Spain / Cofidis) +14″
- Stef Clement (Netherlands / IAM Cycling) +40″
- Sylvain Chavanel (France / Direct Energie)
- Bert-Jan Lindeman (Netherlands / LottoNL) +2:52″
- Daniel Teklehaimanot (Eritrea / Dimension Data) +3:13″
- Sep Vanmarcke (Belgium / LottoNL) +3:26″
- Chris Sorensen (Denmark / Fortuneo) +4:23″
- Bauke Mollema (Netherlands / Trek) +5:05″
General Classification After Stage 12:
- Chris Froome (Britain / Team Sky) 57:11:33″
- Adam Yates (Britain / Orica) +47″
- Nairo Quintana (Colombia / Movistar) +54″
- Bauke Mollema (Netherlands / Trek) +56″
- Romain Bardet (France / AG2R) +1:15″
- Alejandro Valverde (Spain / Movistar) +1:32″
- Tejay van Garderen (U.S. / BMC Racing)
- Fabio Aru (Italy / Astana) +1:54″
- Daniel Martin (Ireland / Etixx – Quick-Step) +1:56″
- Joaquim Rodriguez (Spain / Katusha) +2:11″
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