There were two winners on Friday at the Tour de France. Dutchman Tom Dumoulin won the 13th stage, a time trial. and Chris Froome added potentially valuable seconds to his overall lead.
The 13th stage of the 2016 Tour de France began somberly, as a minute of silence was observed in honor of the victims of the deadly truck attack in Nice.
After that the riders tested their mettle in a 37.5-kilometer individual time trial from Bourg-Saint-Andéol to La Caverne du Pont-d’Arc. The fastest over that stretch was Dumoulin of Team Giant-Alpecin who recorded a time of just over 50 minutes and 15 seconds.
That was one minute and three seconds faster than Froome, who had to settle for second place. The two time Tour champion will hardly be disappointed, though. The Briton was far better than any of the other riders considered legitimate contenders for the yellow jersey.
Froome now leads the overall classification by 1:47 over Dutchman Bauke Mollema. Big names Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde are 2:59 and 3:17 behind Froome respectively and will have to hope that the Team Sky rider suffers a dramatic downturn in form in the coming days.
Saturday has the competitors moving on to a 208.5-kilometer, mostly flat stage that should favor sprinters, before the race returns to the mountains.
