Froome looking to maintain lead until mountains

Chris Froome will be looking to conserve his advantage over main Tour de France rivals Vincenzo Nibali, Alberto Contador and Nairo Quintana for the next week before the mountain stages begin.

The 30-year-old Briton was second on Monday's 159.5km third stage from Antwerp to the Mur de Huy in Belgium.

The six bonus seconds he took on the line saw him take the leader's yellow jersey by a single second ahead of German Tony Martin.

He also put several seconds into his main rivals having gained almost a minute and a half on Nibali and Quintana on Sunday.

With Tuesday's fourth stage introducing cobblestones into the race, Froome is anxious to simply maintain what he's got before the first mountain stage on July 14.

"I don't know how much we can read into that just being a 1km climb (the Mur de Huy finish) but certainly it's a great position to be in," said the Team Sky leader, the 2013 Tour winner.

"I would much rather be in this position than having to make up time on my rivals. It's a great position to be in going into the cobbles stage tomorrow.

"Hopefully, being in yellow will motivate the whole team to stay together tomorrow and stay safe over the pave."
And he says all he needs is more of the same after being the big winner amongst the overall contenders over the last two days.

Asked how he will tackle Tuesday's 221.5km stage from Seraing to Cambrai, he said: "I think like the same way we've approached the first few days: to almost completely forget that we're in this commanding position and start from zero every day and every stage until we get into the mountains.

"Race each stage as best as we can and not think it's an extra pressure or burden being in yellow."

- Hectic -

While Contador now sits 36sec behind Froome with Nibali at 1min 38sec and Quintana at 1min 56sec, another of the big winners was American Tejay Van Garderen, who was curiously fined 50 Swiss francs for urinating in public on the stage.

He came home sixth, just ahead of Nibali and Quintana, and now sits third overall at 13sec.

"It was another hectic day, we knew it would be one on this kind of parcours," said the 26-year-old, who was second to Froome at last month's week-long Criterium du Dauphine.

"We saw some pretty bad crashes out there and a lot of confusion with the race being neutralised for a while.
"But in the end I'd say the day was a pretty big success. Froome gained a bit but I was able to distance a couple of people and keep most of the important guys pretty close."

Fabian Cancellara started the day in yellow but hit the ground hard in the crash 100km into the race.

He finished seventh from last, almost 12 minutes down, but was not one of the five riders to abandon.

"My back doesn't feel good, and for sure it's a big disappointment," he said.

"I expected to defend yellow today, not lying on the ground at 80kph. One day you win, one day you lose. Like this, is for sure not nice."

The 34-year-old, who spent a 29th day in yellow over 11 years on the Tour, described the crash, which brought down around 20 riders and led to the race being stopped for around 10 minutes as the wounded were treated.

"It was on a slight downhill, and I saw the crash happening on the right side and I was hoping I could sneak between the riders in the field, but there was a drainage gutter and in the end I got hit from the back, and hit this drain thing and I don't even know what happened after that," said the man known as Spartacus.

"But thank you to the race organisation to neutralise it. When you see so many people on the ground, it was the right thing to do."
Source: AFP