Froome wearing yellow during 9th stage of Tour de France

It was his teammate world champion Peter Sagan, who sprinted to victory and into the yellow jersey on that stage.

“This is a dream come true”. I’m so exhausted but it was an incredible day… Of course, it would always be nice to try to take a bit more time, to have a bit more of a buffer in the yellow jersey.

After losing time on Saturday’s stage, he said: “My body isn’t responding as I would have liked”.

Contador never appeared to be on form after taking a hard fall on Stage 1 of the Tour.

Two-time champion Contador climbed into the Tinkoff team auto with 100km remaining of the stage from Vielha Val d’Aran to Andorre Arcalis.

The select group containing the challengers for the overall reformed, and next to chance his arm was Etixx-Quick Step’s Dan Martin, nowadays a resident of Andorra, who lay fourth overall this morning just 17 seconds behind Froome. In what has many called it an innovation and extraordinary display of pedalling, Froome maintained his lead and eventually won the stage, gaining 13 seconds and 10 seconds bonus against his nearest rivals.

By sheer coincidence, the spectator happened to be Colombian and supporting Froome’s biggest rival for the Yellow Jersey, last year’s runner-up Nairo Quintana.

“That was a tough stage and the weather made it even tougher”, Froome said. It was super hot before we got rain on our head and ice falling from the sky.

“I have no doubt that people out there have calculated my VAM [the Italian term “Velocità Ascensionale Media” meaning “average ascent speed”] going down that climb and saying it has gone off the charts”, said Froome, who has faced numerous questions on the legitimacy of his 2013 and 2015 Tour wins. “By no means did I expect this to be easy and that I would ride away from everyone”. “The level is higher, and I’m going to have to fight for every second I can”.

“In the back of my mind I was waiting for his attack all the way up to the last kilometre”, said Froome. I would like to think he was on his limit. “He stayed on my wheel, glued”, the race leader added.

It was the second time in the last three editions of the Tour that Contador has been forced to quit due to injuries suffered in a crash.

A group of 25 riders made the early pace and began to open up a lead over the peloton, but it was too much for Alberto Contador (Tinkoff).