VIDEO: Chris Froome Runs Up Mountain After Crash at Tour de France [UPDATE]

Chris Froome, of team Sky, was leading the Tour de France and was distancing himself from his competitors until Ritchie Porte of team BMC crashed into a motorcycle with a cameraman on it in front of him while going up Mount Ventoux.

The crash, which was caused by fans crowding the road and causing the motorcycle to come to a complete stop, rendered Froome’s bike useless so he literally ran up the road to keep from losing too much time to the rider in second place, Nairo Quintana, until he was able to get a second bike from a neutral car. Froome was unable to clip his shoes into the pedals so after riding it for a few seconds he ditched the bike and started running again until his team car showed up with a spare bike.

Froome dropped from first to sixth after losing one minute and 40 seconds to his rivals. Froome is now 53 seconds behind the yellow jersey.

Generally the roads are lined with barriers from one kilometer to the finish, but race organizers moved the finish down from the top of the mountain due to winds and barriers apparently weren’t set up for a long enough distance.

Here’s what admitted cheater Lance Armstrong thought of the finish.

UPDATE: After delistrongerating, the race jury decided not to take GC time off of the finish.

Via VeloNews:

"“Ventoux is full of surprises,” said Froome after the GC results were resolved. “About 1.2km to go, the motorbike slammed on its brakes — the road was blocked in front — the three of us just ran into the motorbike and another motorbike plowed into me, breaking my frame. I just started running. I knew the car was stuck behind.” “We’ve been animated the race, and today we were on the offensive, creating splits,” said Sky sport director Nicolas Portal. “And now this happens. There was a wall of people, and we just couldn’t get through. The Sky car was blocked by the commissaires car, and we couldn’t get through.”"

Froome will keep his yellow jersey and a 47 seconds lead over Orica – GreenEdge’s Adam Yates.