CHAMROUSSE, France: Team Sky chief Dave Brailsford said Friday that even if reigning champion Chris Froome had still been in the Tour de France, he would have struggled to beat Vincenzo Nibali.
Italian Nibali won his third stage and extended his lead, while Sky’s Richie Porte dropped from second overall to 16th after a disastrous day in the saddle in which he came home 27th and 8min 48sec behind the winner.
Sky leader Froome, 29, crashed out with a broken hand and wrist on the fifth stage. He was dominant last year but Brailsford believes Nibali, who is in total command of this race, would have run him close.
But while Porte’s overall hopes are now over, Brailsford said the team still had much to fight for.
“There’s no excuse, we’re not trying to hide or anything. You’ve got to hold your head up and get on with it, we’re not going to roll over,” he said.
“It was a blow losing Chris, when you think we were coming here to try and win the race and certainly seeing how Nibali’s been going it would have been an interesting race, that’s for sure.
“Having to recalibrate to our plan B as it were, and now having to recalibrate again, we’ve just got to take stock of the situation and not get too downbeat because there’s still a lot of racing to go.
“We’ve got to try and get something out of the race.”
While Nibali stretched his lead out to 3:37 over Alejandro Valverde of Spain, two young French riders moved into the next places.
Romain Bardet is third at 4:24 with Thibaut Pinot fourth at 4:40.
The pair look set to fight each other for the young rider’s white jersey and perhaps for a place on the final podium. — AFP