Defending champion Chris Froome left the Tour de France a broken man on Wednesday, as Vincenzo Nibali reached new heights.
Froome crashed twice in the tournament’s fifth stage after also falling on Tuesday and it all proved too much for the 29-year-old Kenyan-born British rider.
After the third spill, he did not even try to climb back on his bike and headed for a Team Sky car instead.
Photo: EPA
“Devastated to have to withdraw from this year’s TDF [Tour de Framce]. Injured wrist and tough conditions made controlling my bike near to impossible,” he said on his Twitter feed.
Team Sky manager Dave Brailsford said their focus would now turn to Richie Porte.
“It’s not to be [Froome’s] year, but in Richie Porte we’ve got a very capable guy who will now lead the team,” Brailsford said. “I think like anything else, on a day like today when you have a setback, you’ve got to roll with it.”
Another Sky teammate, Geraint Thomas, said contingency plans had already been put in place before Wednesday’s grueling 152.5km stage from Ypres in Belgium to the French city of Arenberg Porte du Hainaut that included 13km of cobblestones over seven sectors.
“We knew going into today we had Richie as well and it was a kind of two-pronged attack. They were both on an equal footing in the team,” he said.
Yet none of the overall contenders were on an equal footing with Italy’s Nibali in the fifth stage, with the Italian riding a stunning race to come third behind stage winner Lars Boom of Belkin Pro Cycling.
The result was all the more spectacular because while Dutchman Boom, a former cyclo-cross racer, is a specialist on the cobbles, ProTeam Astana’s Nibali hardly has any previous experience in that area.
Nevertheless, he handled the roads that normally grace the Paris-Roubaix one-day Classic with incredible ease.
“It was exciting, you’ve got to say that,” Brailsford said graciously. “It might not have worked out for us, but if you’re a bike fan and watched the way that Nibali rode today, that was pretty impressive. You know, fair play to him. I thought it was unbelievable the way he rode, to ride away from [Fabian] Cancellara and [Peter] Sagan on the cobbles, that was exciting and I think we’ll remember that for a long time.”
Nibali struck a blow to his rivals and now leads two-time winner Alberto Contador of Spain, who is 19th overall for the Discovery Channel team, by 2:37.
“It’s a good advantage over Contador, but there’s a long way to go to Paris,” Nibali said. “I have to stay calm and have a good race and a good strategy for the coming stages.”
Other possible contenders such as world champion Rui Costa of Portugal, Spaniard Alejandro Valverde and US duo Tejay van Garderen and Andrew Talansky are all more than 2 minutes back, while Porte is probably the best-placed of the potential winners at 1:54.
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