team sky had three riders in the top 5 of todays stage. from tomorrow wsj
Team Sky’s Chris Froome during stage 10 of the Tour on Tuesday. ENLARGE
Team Sky’s Chris Froome during stage 10 of the Tour on Tuesday. PHOTO: BRYN LENNON/GETTY IMAGES
By JOSHUA ROBINSON
July 14, 2015 2:54 p.m. ET
5 COMMENTS
Chris Froome needed only one day in the mountains to blow this year’s Tour de France apart.
Already wearing the leader’s yellow jersey, he launched a colossal attack on the first top-rated climb of the race to distance all of his main rivals and take the stage victory on Tuesday. Froome, the 2013 champion, finished by himself atop La-Pierre-Saint-Martin in the Pyrenees.
The Madness of Descent
See how downhills at the Tour test cyclists against time, danger and one another
ENLARGE
One-by-one, his main rivals fell away on the final 15.3-kilometer climb, which averaged a 7.4% grade. American Tejay van Garderen of BMC Racing is now 2 minutes 52 seconds back in second place of the overall classification. Movistar’s Nairo Quintana, himself a fearsome climber, lost over a minute and now trails by 3:09.
“I couldn’t believe it when I asked the guys to push on a little bit,” Froome said. “And I was just hearing, on the radio, the names of the guys who were being dropped.”
The biggest casualties of the day were Alberto Contador (fourth overall by 4:01) and defending champion Vincenzo Nibali (10th by 6:57). Their hopes of contending for the yellow jersey all but died with nearly two weeks left in the race.
“Now it will be difficult,” Nibali said. “Physically, I feel pretty good, but I can’t give more. I’m not the same Nibali as I was last year.”
Shepherded by his super-domestique Richie Porte, Froome delivered relentless power at the conclusion of 167-kilometer stage and took off alone inside the final kilometers. Porte was so strong that he was able to kick at the finish to overtake Quintana for second place and rob him of a few more bonus seconds at the line. Team Sky also had the fifth-place finisher with Geraint Thomas.
“When people are performing like that, there’s just nothing that you can do about it,” Movistar team manager Eusebio Unzué said after the stage.
MORE TOUR DE FRANCE
Basso Withdraws After Cancer Diagnosis
The Curse of the Yellow Jersey
Said Quintana: “He’s stronger than all of us.”
As with any dominant performance in cycling, questions immediately started to fly about doping. Putting three riders in the top five on a climbing day right after a rest day—timing that can complicate matters—raised a lot of eyebrows at the Tour.
“We’re extremely proud to be in this position,” Froome told British broadcaster ITV. “We’re a clean team. I’m winning the Tour clean.”
The team was defending itself before Tuesday’s stage, too, after a video surfaced online showing Froome’s power data during a similarly explosive performance on Mont Ventoux in 2013. (Critics have long used power numbers to suggest the presence of performance-enhancing drugs.) Team Sky said on Monday that it believed its data had been hacked and its lawyers were looking into it.
Meanwhile, Froome’s reeling rivals have two more days in the high Pyrenees to make up ground on the Team Sky machine. Otherwise, they could enter the Alps next week with little to ride for.
“This was really a bad day for me,” Contador said. “Chris Froome showed his authority.”
