Tour de France: Chris Froome confirms blow to knee in crash

Chris Froome insisted he is “absolutely fine” despite taking a blow to his knee in a late pile-up on stage six of the Tour de France.

The incident happened 900m from the finish in Le Havre, when race leader Tony Martin clipped the wheel in front of him and brought down a clutch of other riders.

Vincenzo Nibali, Nairo Quintana and Tejay van Garderen all fell and although contact was also made with Froome, the Team Sky rider somehow managed to stay upright.

Martin broke his collarbone in the crash and had to abandon the race, which means the overall lead will pass to Froome for the second time this year when the German fails to sign on for Friday's seventh stage.

He told teamsky.com: "I took a knock on my knee bone and there was a little bit of blood there, but nothing more than that, I'm absolutely fine. I had to wait on the roadside as my rear wheel was buckled and I couldn't ride on.”

Froome confronted Nibali in the Astana rider's team bus after the stage. Both men thought each other had caused the accident, but after a heated discussion and watching a replay of the pile-up on television, they managed to clear the air.

Froome tweeted: There was some confusion as to who caused the crash, wanted to clear that up with @Astanateam @vincenzonibali (definitely wasn’t me!)."

Nibali said: "Chris and I watched the replay in the bus together, and we saw that neither of us was at fault."

Froome must now once again shoulder the responsibility of being Tour leader, but he nevertheless remains delighted with how the race has panned out so far.

He added: "As I have said before, I'm really happy with how things have gone up to this point and couldn't have asked for any better. Hopefully we can keep that."

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