Team Sky’s hopes of overall victory in Paris-Nice were dealt a painful blow after both Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas crashed in the closing stages of Saturday’s sixth stage from Vence to Nice.
On roads made slick and greasy by steady rain, both Team Sky riders fell, just as they distanced overall race leader Michal Kwiatkowski, from Poland.
Porte slid out of control first on a relatively innocuous right-hand curve, while Thomas came down soon after, allowing the Polish rider to close a rapidly opening gap.
But their falls also allowed Tony Gallopin, the French rider, to race clear to stage victory and the overall race lead on the Promenade des Anglais.
With only Sunday’s 9.5 kilometre individual time trial to the Col d’Eze remaining, he now leads Porte by 36 seconds and Thomas by 38.
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Afterwards, a disconsolate Thomas suggested that too high a pressure in his tyres may have been to blame.
“I was just sliding all day on these tyres,” he said.
“I know that corner, so I went slow, but I still just slipped. It’s annoying. The tyres felt pretty hard. Maybe it was the same for everyone, but I was slipping out a lot of the time.
“I’d had about ten slips already. That was why I was going steady. I knew the corner, backed off from the other guys, but still ended up the floor. There’s nothing you can do about it now. You’ve just got to accept it.”
Thomas cut his hip in the fall, but was more concerned about his wasted efforts.
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“My hip’s fine. It’s more giving seconds away when you don’t need to,” he said. “It’s 15 kilometres I want to forget.”
Howver, both Thomas and Porte have reason to be optimistic. In 2013, on the same stage, when Porte took his first win in Paris-Nice, he beat Gallopin by one minute and 56 seconds. Any repeat of that performance would ensure overall victory.