Chris Froome crash: Four-time Tour de France champion riding at 65kph when he hit wall, says team-mate

Team Ineos’s general manager, Sir Dave Brailsford, revealed that the accident was ‘very serious’ and ruled Froome out of next month’s Tour de France, which begins on 6 July

Wout Poels, the Team Ineos team-mate riding beside Chris Froome when he crashed at the Criterium du Dauphine on Wednesday, said the Briton was travelling at around 65kph when he lost control and hit a wall.

Froome and Poels were on a reconnaissance of the day’s individual time trial in Roanne, central France, when the incident happened. An ambulance quickly attended the scene before Froome was airlifted to hospital with a suspected broken femur bone.

Team Ineos’s general manager, Sir Dave Brailsford, revealed that the accident was “very serious” and ruled Froome out of next month’s Tour de France, which begins on 6 July.

“We were after the climb on the downhill and the wind took Chris Froome’s wheel and he went down like really, really hard on the floor, and I think we were going 66 or 65kph. It was really bad,” Poels said.

“It was pretty windy out there and especially on a TT bike. I mean especially with the high wheels and you’re also in a little bit of a less comfortable position of course. Yeah, it can happen. If you go down at 65kph, and he went down really, really hard, then you know it’s not really good.”

Pouls himself suffered a serious crash during the 2012 Tour which left him in intensive care and kept him off the bike for three months.

“I hope it’s not as bad a crash as what I had in 2012, but I mean it’s also sport. There’s also the mentality with us that sometimes you have a bad injury or accident and then you fight back. Hopefully, you can come back stronger.”

Froome is likely to be ruled out for the rest of the season, with Team Ineos focusing their efforts around last year’s Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas and the young Colombian Egan Bernal.