Tour de France: Chris Froome 'lucky' to escape injury in stage 19 crash
By Matt Westby
Last Updated: 22/07/16 8:18pm
Chris Froome admitted he was lucky to escape serious injury after crashing on a rain-soaked 19th stage of the Tour de France.
The Team Sky rider slid off on the descent from the penultimate climb of the day and although he was able continue, he had to struggle up the final ascent to the summit finish in Saint-Gervais on a team-mate's bike.
Froome crossed the line adrift of the likes of Romain Bardet, Nairo Quintana and Fabio Aru, but he extended his overall lead from 3min 52sec to 4min 11sec after his previous closest rival, Bauke Mollema, also crashed and suffered even heavier losses.
Froome said: "I was just trying to stay up front and out of trouble and I hit one of the white lines. I'm OK. I'm lucky I'm not seriously injured.
"I lost a bit of skin and banged my knee a bit, but this is the kind of day I feel grateful that I've got that four-minute advantage; I could fall back on that a little bit.
"It was great for me to have team-mates all the way up the finish there, Wout [Poels] in particular. It was a great team effort today and it feels great to be one day closer now to Paris.
"I'm really grateful I'm not seriously injured. It could have gone either way there. There's never a quiet day on the Tour."
Froome will all but seal overall victory if he can survive Saturday's 146.5km 20th stage, from Megeve to Morzine in the Alps.
Sunday's final stage into Paris is largely processional and will not contested by the general classification contenders.
Froome added: "Tomorrow is going to be really hard. I'm sure I'm going to be a bit sore and stiff after today, but hopefully I can rely on my team-mates. One last push to get through tomorrow's stage now."
Find out more about stage 20 in our race guide and follow the stage with our live blog from 12pm BST.
