Team Sky's Chris Froome has lucky escape after crash on stage two of Tour de France
Sunday 2 July 2017 19:26, UK
Chris Froome says he is fine barring the odd scrape after being involved in a nasty crash on stage two of the Tour de France.
Defending champion and overall favourite Froome came down with a number of his Team Sky team-mates 30km from the finish of the stage in the Belgian city of Liege.
Froome was soon back on his feet and twice had to catch up to the back of the peloton after a couple of bike changes, but he was able to finish with the remaining favourites.
Leader Geraint Thomas was also held up by the crash but lost no time and remains in the yellow jersey heading into Monday's third stage.
Froome said: "No injuries, thankfully. Just lost a little bit of skin from my backside.
"That's the nature of the race. We knew it's slippery conditions like that, every time the race comes on there's a big risk something could happen and today there was just a touch of wheels, or someone slid just a few wheels ahead of me, and at those speeds you just can't avoid it.
"I think a few of us went down but thankfully everybody's okay and got to the finish all right without losing any time to our rivals, so that's the main thing."
German sprinter Marcel Kittel won Sunday's stage to move into third place overall, while there was a promising fourth placed finish for Mark Cavendish as he continues his recovery from a bout of glandular fever.