Tour de France: Chris Froome loses yellow jersey

Team Sky's British rider Chris Froome lost his place at the top of the general classification of the Tour de France at the end of stage 12, despite having controlled the race until the final few hundred meters of the stage. French rider Romain Bardet won the stage in Peyragudes, Colombia's Rigoberto Uran came in second, while new overall classification leader Fabio Aru from Italy finished third. Froome cracked on the final 400 meters of the final ascent, a portion that featured gradients of over 16 percent. Romain Bardet moves up to third in the overall classification, while Froome is now second. The day featured a breakaway of several riders, the last to be caught was Stephen Cummings who was alone at the head of the race when the general classification contenders went by him inside the final 10km on the penultimate climb. Team Sky were at the front of the bunch, dictating a harsh tempo first through Vasil Kiryienka and Michal Kwiatkowski, then through Mikel Nieve and finally with Mikel Landa at the front. Froome's rivals found it impossible to attack him given that tempo, while Nairo Quintana and Alberto Contador got dropped on the penultimate climb and ended up losing more than two minutes. But when the race reached its final 400 meters Fabio Aru attacked as he saw that Froome was not moving along with his usual cadence. The steep gradient took its toll on Froome as Aru, Bardet and Uran moved clear of the Team Sky leader. Bardet beat Aru and Uran to the stage victory, but Fabio Aru is now the new general classification leader as Froome lost 22 seconds. Froome is now just 6 seconds behind Aru in the general classification, Bardet is 25 seconds behind, while Rigoberto Uran has a deficit of 35 seconds. With three more mountain stages left and an individual time-trial, Chris Froome is still the bookmakers' favourite to win the 2017 Tour de France. He is 4/5 at Bet365 to win the race, new leader Fabio Aru is 9/4, Romain Bardet is 5/1 and Rigoberto Uran is 14/1 to win it.