Chris Froome lost the yellow jersey to German rider Tony Martin at the end of Tuesday's cobbled stage at the Tour de France, but he described losing the lead as the "perfect situation". Tony Martin launched the decisive attack with just over 3km remaining and held on to the lead to claim the stage win and the 10 bonus seconds. He was second in the overall standings before the stage, so the win moved him ahead of Chris Froome at the top of the leaderboard.
Froome said after the end of the stage: “I'm not concerned about losing the yellow jersey. There's a long way to go, and while Tony's a great time triallist, he's not going to be there in the mountains, so I'm happy to see the jersey go to him rather than any of the big overall rivals. This is the perfect situation for us and it will hopefully mean my guys can have a bit of a rest over the next few days now. Congratulations to Tony for his late attack. He has been really close to the yellow jersey for a few days now and he deserves this after all the hard work he has put in.”
Chris Froome had a great performance on the cobbles, always remaining in the front group along with overall classification rivals Vincenzo Nibali, Alberto Contador and Nairo Quintana. He even launched an attack after the last cobbled section, with around 9km to go. “I wasn't trying to show how strong I was on the cobbles today; it was about staying out of trouble. When it got over 200km it was more about who had the legs, and after the last section I had Geraint Thomas ahead of me, so we thought, 'Why not?', and I had a little attack. My legs felt good but unfortunately it all came back together.”
The British rider is now the top favourite to win the Tour de France, here are the current outright odds at Bet365:
Chris Froome - 1.72 Nairo Quintana - 3.75 Alberto Contador - 9.00 Vincenzo Nibali - 10.00 Tejay van Garderen - 23.00
Shumar4life 8 years ago
I don't believe that anyone is happy when he lose yellow jersey but maybe this was part of tactical decisions of his team. This is a long run and he must save himself for coming events. We saw that Tony had serious crash and I don't want to see that he can't drive anymore on this race. It would be very bad news
Please enter your comment.
Your comment is added.
sharpe 8 years ago
From tactical point of view it's just great scenario for Team Sky that they didn't have to defend the yellow jersey in the flat stages till end of the week. Today Tony crashes and it's not certain that he is going to continue tomorrow so there is an option Chris Froome to wears the jersey again but still nothing is clear...
From tactical point of view it's just great scenario for Team Sky that they didn't have to defend the yellow jersey in the flat stages till end of the week. Today Tony crashes and it's not certain that he is going to continue tomorrow so there is an option Chris Froome to wears the jersey again but still nothing is clear just yet. I hope Tony will continue the race because he wears the jersey for the first time at the tour and will be tough way to loose it because of the injury.
Show morePlease enter your comment.
Your comment is added.
Alexa Alexa 8 years ago
Chris Froome is very experience cyclist.He knows very well that is most importan to win at the end,it is not important to wear a yellow jersey all the tour.Especially ,when now Tony Martin wears it.When it comes to cycle in mountains ,Froome will be in much better position then Tony.
Please enter your comment.
Your comment is added.