Tour de France 2017: Chris Froome loses yellow jersey to Fabio Aru as legs fail him in final push

Froome and Team Sky seemed comfortably in control for 213 of the stage’s 214 kilometre trek

Aru knows the hard work is ahead of him to hold on to the jersey (Getty)

Events in the Tour de France took an exceptionally dramatic twist on Thursday as Chris Froome struggled on a brutally steep final climb and lost the yellow jersey to Italian National Champion Fabio Aru.

Froome and Team Sky seemed comfortably in control for 213 of the stage’s 214 kilometre trek through the Pyrenees, with the Briton and his squad keeping a relentless high pace.

But on the ultra-steep final ascent to Peyragudes airfield, when Aru launched an explosive attack and then France’s Romain Bardet followed him up the road, Froome veered right as he struggled to keep his gear turning, with his face unusually contorted. As he did so, all of his rivals who had been shadowing him suddenly realised that the Briton was in serious trouble - and accelerated past him for the fast-approaching line.

Froome finally completed the stage in seventh place, 22 seconds down on stage winner Bardet. Crucially, he was 20 seconds down on Aru, meaning that the Italian has claimed the yellow.

“The finish was very hard, I just didn’t have the legs, but there’s a long way to go,” Froome said afterwards.

“I just have to congratulate Bardet, that was a very nice attack. But I didn’t have the legs, I was giving the maximum.”

Froome is a long way from losing the Tour and - amongst other positive signs - the way he spent a good 15 minutes on his turbo trainer doing warm-down exercises before speaking to the press pack at the Sky bus strongly suggests he has a great deal of fuel left in the tank.

However, this is only the second time since 2013 that Froome has been forced to surrender the yellow jersey after moving into the Tour lead.

The first time, in the first week of the 2015 Tour, the race was still in a skirmishing phase and Froome had almost taken the lead too soon. Two years on, Froome, having moved into the lead last week, had said his intention was to wear the yellow all the way to Paris.

That will no longer be possible, obviously, but the differences are minimal, with just six seconds between the Briton and the Italian. After such a long domination of the Tour, the morale boost for Froome’s rivals of such a defeat is arguably the most important damage done.

Froome struggled in the final kilometre of the stage (Getty)

New race leader Aru, already a winner at the race’s first summit finish in La Planche des Belles Filles said that he was ecstatic at taking the yellow. But the Sardinian rider also recognised that his team, Astana, which has suffered several important losses already, would have a tough time defending Italy’s first yellow jersey since 2014.

On a day where British cycling fans remembered the 50th anniversary of the death of Tom Simpson on the Mont Ventoux, National Champion Steve Cummings was the unsung hero of the day, making a breakaway of over 180 kilometres that only collapsed on the slopes of the Peyresourde, the second last climb. “Sky kept the gap too small, but once you commit, you commit and in the end I didn’t have the legs,” the Wirral-born rider said.

Aru and Froome had, by a bizarre twist of fate, both had a brief scare when they skidded off the road the same downhilll corner going into a roundabout, with Froome’s Spanish team-mate Mikel Nieve also spinning off and almost hitting a caravan. Although dramatic, none of the trio were actually hurt, and their rivals eased up their pace until they could rejoin the peloton. After which, it all seemed like business as usual until Froome cracked within sight of the finish.

“Sky are not happy with the outcome and they are proud, they will want to get the lead back,” said Bardet. And on today’s (Friday’s) second Pyrenean stage, the sparks will surely fly.