One of the most dangerous parts of the Tour de France is when the riders go down a mountain descent. Most of the roads are wide enough for a single car, the roads might be wet and you’ll have to navigate tight turns while coasting at over 60 mph.
Naturally, when that happens, there’s a chance of a major crash and that’s just what happened to Yellow Jersey contenders Dan Martin and Richie Porte on the final mountain descent of the day off the Mont du Chat about 23 kilometers/14 miles from the finish.
As you can see, Porte overshot the corner going at 45 mph and ran out of room. In doing so, he crashed in front of the path of Martin, who crashed violently into the side of the mountain.
Martin was able to continue but Porte remained on the ground and had to be kept stationary on the side of the road. Porte was put in a neck brace and was put on a stretcher as he was driven away by ambulance. Porte was awake and was moving.
This eliminates two riders from the Yellow Jersey hunt. Porte was 5th, 39 seconds behind and obviously abandoned. Martin was 4th, 25 seconds behind. But while he was able to continue, lost 1:13 on the leader Chris Froome that he’s likely out of the running. Colombian Rigoberto Uran won the stage in a photo finish with Frenchman Warren Barguil. Froome finished 3rd.
That wasn’t the only serious crash that eliminated top contenders. Froome’s teammate, previous Yellow Jersey holder and 2nd place rider Geraint Thomas crashed earlier and had to abandon. While he wasn’t going to challenge his teammate for the win, he would’ve been a huge asset for Froome and it would make his job at winning a fourth Tour de France a tougher task. That was until two contenders were also eliminated.
This just goes go show that despite making every bit of preparation and making the sacrifices and hard work to winning the Tour de France, anything can happen within the 2,200 mile route that changes everything within a split second.
