Team Sky’s Chris Froome has taken the TdF yellow jersey for a British record 15th time after moving into first place on a day of carnage on the tour.
Earlier an upping of pace ahead of the Cote de Bohissau had caused an extraordinary crash which saw a number of riders hitting the road hard – amongst them was leader Fabian Cancellara (Trek). Despite finishing the stage, Cancellara has now confirmed his withdrawal from this year’s edition with a CT scan shortly after he crossed the finish line confirming two vertebrae fractures of the lower back. ‘This is incredibly disappointing for me,’ said Cancellara, ‘The team was on a high with the yellow jersey and were very motivated to defend it. We have had a lot of crashes and injuries since the start of the season, and we finally had a great 24 hours but now it’s back to bad luck. One day you win, one day you lose.’
For his part Froome was never out of the front positions during the 159.5km leg – which saw the TdF move from Holland to Belgium – and he took the win (and jersey) by edging out Katusha’s Joaquim Rodriguez thanks to four bonus seconds. Commenting on the day Froome said, ‘It’s an amazing feeling to be back in yellow. If you’d have told me this morning I’d be in the jersey, I wouldn’t have believed you, but it’s amazing. Especially on a day like this which had a punchy climb in the final. That isn’t normally my kind of thing – I’m better on longer climbs – so I was really surprised to see the gaps open up like they did.’
