Peyragudes — Frenchman Romain Bardet timed his final effort perfectly to win the 12th stage of the Tour de France on Thursday, setting up a thrilling second half of the three-week race as defending champion Chris Froome showed a rare sign of weakness. Italian Fabio Aru claimed the overall leader’s yellow jersey as previous leader Froome could not sustain the pace in the final few hundred metres up a steep climb to the finish line. Astana rider Aru attacked in the final part of the climb to Peyragudes, a 2.4km ascent at a punishing average gradient of 8.4%. But Bardet had more left in the tank and powered away in the last 200m to beat Colombian Rigoberto Uran by 2sec. Aru came third, also 2sec behind Bardet, while Froome cracked and ended up 22sec adrift of the Frenchman. Overall, Aru leads Froome by 6sec and Bardet by 25. Froome and Aru went off the road briefly in the descent from the Port de Bales, the penultimate climb of the day, but the group of overall contenders waited on the...
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