Uran wins ninth stage of the Tour

Chambéry : Colombian Rigoberto Uran won a drama-filled ninth stage of the Tour de France yesterday.

Champion Chris Froome retained the yellow jersey after finishing the stage third, behind Frenchman Warren Barguil who missed out on victory in a photo-finish.

Briton Froome’s four bonus seconds on the line helped him increase his lead to 18sec over Italian Fabio Aru, who moved up a place to second with Thomas having quit the race.

Bardet is now third at 51sec with Uran, who took the winner’s 10sec bonus, fourth at 55sec.

But other contenders including twice former runner-up Nairo Quintana of Colombia lost more than a minute, as did Dan Martin, who courageously battled on despite being taken down by Porte’s spectacular crash, and even coming off his bike a second time on that same perilous descent.

Twice former winner Alberto Contador was one of the big losers on the day from the 181.5km stage from Nantua to Chambery.

The Spanish veteran cracked on the final of seven categorised climbs and lost several minutes by the finish.

Martin, though, produced a remarkable ride despite his two crashes to limit his losses.

“I managed to catch the group in front of me after I crashed the second time -- I was flying down the mountain,” he said with a smile.

“After I caught Nairo (Quintana) at the bottom, everyone was committed and it was just a case of getting to the finish. “Job done!”

Like Quintana he came home 1min 15sec behind Uran and now sits sixth at 1:44, with Quintana remaining eighth but now out to 2:13 behind Froome.