Chris Froome loses Tour de France lead in Stage 12
- by Grant Boone
- in Sports
- — Jul 14, 2017
The French Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) proved to be the strongest, Thursday, on the airfield of Peyragudes to win the 12th stage of the Tour de France.
Statistic, quote and fact of the day after the 12th stage of the Tour de France, a 214.5km ride from Pay on Thursday.
Bardet won Stage 12 ahead of Rigoberto Uran and Aru, who seized the race lead from Froome by six seconds. Romain Bardet - who had trailed Froome by 51 seconds this morning - won the stage but Fabio Aru was the main beneficiary of the Briton's weakness. Once the leaders reached the brutal last kilometre of the day, it was New Zealander George Bennett who attacked first but Froome's Sky team-mate Mikel Landa chased him down. Uran's Cannondale-Drapac team cried foul over the incident. In an fantastic finish on an uphill airstrip with a vertiginous 20 percent gradient, Aru went on the attack in the last few hundred metres.
Cummings had said before the stage started he would look to get in a breakaway as a way to pay tribute to Tom Simpson on the 50th anniversary of his death on Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour.
"It's a good sign (that the Tour is not over yet) but it was just two hundred metres and I would not think too much about it", LeMond, who is on the Tour as an analyst for Eurosport, said in his daily chat with Reuters on Thursday. "It was a tragic incident".
"There's some good stages coming now and there are a lot of people exhausted, so I have to eat a lot of rice and pasta, refuel and try again in a few days".
Answering fans' questions in a short video for his Quick-Step Floors team, Marcel Kittel claimed not to believe in super powers.
"I knew it could suit me", he said. "But I didn't have the legs to follow". If that is not a super power worthy of a cape, what is?
"I'm not frustrated, it's just the race - maybe they wanted to win the stage".
Fabio Aru celebrates taking the yellow jersey for the first time in his career.
