Back on his bike, after having climbed a section of Ventoux on foot, Chris Froome decided to take off. He hasn't yet knocked out the Tour but in yesterday's time trial he has accumulated so many points of advantage that he can be considered the master of the Grande Boucle. Without however playing the Martian because he too was more than a minute late from the Dutchman Tom Dumoulin, ruler of the race against the clock after putting his own brand in the Andorra-Arcalis storm, but the British was enough to finish second to give his opponents a beating: only Bauke Mollema limited the gap from the yellow jersey to under one minute – exactly 51”-. The others all collapsed further back: Nairo Quintana, after the failure on Ventoux where he was even caught being towed by a motorcycle, lost more than 2 minutes to Froome on a par with Richie Porte.
The Condor has accused the wind but the Movistar clan is growing nervous about the so far opaque progress of its Tour; Adam Yates also did a little better than the Colombian but conceded 1'58” to Froome and lost second place in the standings overtaken by Mollema. Better than Quintana is also Valverde who looks good compared to expectations finishing 15th at 2'48” from Dumoulin and 1'45” from Froome, two seconds better than Teejay Van Garderen. Roman Kreuziger, the leader of the Tinkoff orphaned by Contador, distances himself from the record by another 2'10”; Bardet, the last surviving Frenchman in the top ten, drops back by 2'49”; Daniel Martin of 3'07”; Louis Meintjes of 3'19”. Completely disappointing was Fabio Aru's performance, who set a time higher than Nibali's, finishing 37th at 4'25” from Dumoulin and 3'22” from Froome. Now Aru is tenth in the standings at 5'16” from the yellow jersey: in the 37,5 km from Bourg-Saint-Andéol to La Caverne du Pont-D'Arc the Sardinian from Astana also sees the podium area slip away. Out of everything and not even Thibaut Pinot left who went home to be treated for bronchitis. These are bitter days for the French, unfortunately not only in the Tour.
