Daniel Felipe Martinez of Colombia uses eye wash after being sprayed. (Stephane Mahe/Reuters)
The Tour de France came to a screeching halt Tuesday when tear gas used by police in an attempt to break up a farmers’ protest accidentally hit them and stung their eyes.
Tour leaders Geraint Thomas and four-time champion Chris Froome required medical attention after police went to the tear gas when farmers began driving tractors and throwing bales of hay onto the peloton’s path about 18 miles into the roughly 135-mile 16th stage from Carcassonne to Bagneres-de-Luchon.
Riders wait for the race to resume. (Marco Bertorello / AFP / Getty Images)
TV images showed riders pulling over as the race was delayed for about 15 minutes amid confusion. World champion Peter Sagan also was affected by the spray and poured water over his face. Froome was treated with eye drops and once it became clear that riders were not being attacked, the race resumed.
Gendarmes detain a protester. (Jeff Pachoud AFP / Getty Images
Farmers often use the visibility offered by the race to protest, and one farmer carried a sign that said “For the Piege region to live” on Tuesday. This time, farmers from the Ariege department in southwestern France were protesting the reduction of European Union funding, according to French media.
This Tour has been marked by incidents involving Team Sky’s Froome, who is second in the general classification, 1 minute, 39 seconds behind his Sky teammate Thomas. Froome has been spat at and jostled by spectators protesting his participation in the race. Froome was cleared to ride just before the Tour after racing with a possible ban hanging over his head for using twice the allowed level of salbutamol when he won the Spanish Vuelta.
During the climb to Alpe d’Huez, fans threw flares at riders, prompting Tour officials to ban the use of smoke flares. Sir Dave Brailsford, the Team Sky manager, noted that a 21-year-old female member of their staff was spat at by fans along the way.
“We raced in Italy and Chris’s case was open when we were at the Tour of Italy and the Italians were fantastic, to be fair to them. The Spanish, fantastic. It just seems to be a French thing,” Brailsford told the Daily Mail. “It’s like a French cultural thing really, isn’t it? That’s it. I’m not sure that they would have liked their [World Cup] football players spat at in Russia.”
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