Cycling: Froome Insists Aru Incident A 'genuine Mistake'

(APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Jul, 2017 ) Froome reiterated on Monday his denial that he barged chief Tour de France rival Fabio Aru during Sunday's epic mountain stage. Froome finished the 181.5km ninth stage in third to increase his overall lead to 18 seconds, with Italian Aru now second after Geraint Thomas, the yellow jersey wearer's Sky team-mate, crashed out of the race midway through Sunday's stage.

But there was a controversial moment on the final Mont du Chat climb when Froome had a mechanical problem and Aru appeared to break the unwritten rule not to attack the race leader in such a situation.

Not given any help from other overall contenders, Aru quickly relented and Froome caught back up to his rivals without any drama. But moments later he appeared to barge his shoulder into Aru. "I think certainly in the peloton there's a bit of an unwritten rule that when the race leader has some kind of an issue that prevents him from racing, then the group doesn't take advantage of a situation like that," said Froome, acknowledging that Aru, who denied he'd seen Froome's problem, "appeared to accelerate".