Eyedrops and water were used to treat several riders inadvertently hit as the police targeted protesters.
LUCHON, France — In a Tour de France that has been marked by spectator-induced danger, defending champion Chris Froome and several other riders rode into police tear gas intended for protesters early on Thursday’s stage.
The race came to a stop for about 15 minutes as eyedrops and water were used to treat several riders including Froome, Geraint Thomas, the current race leader and another member of Team Sky, as well as Peter Sagan, the world champion.
The addition of tear gas to the long list of indignities the riders endure over the course of the three week race appears to be without precedent in the modern Tour. It was prompted by protests by farmers who were trying to block the racecourse with bales of hay. Police used tear gas to disperse them 30 kilometers into an unusually long 218 kilometer stage through the Pyrenees mountains that included five major climbs.
Protests by farmers and trade unionists have frequently blocked or delayed the Tour and other major races. In recent years, efforts have been made in the Pyrenees by sheep farmers angered by the reintroduction of bears to the mountains. Perhaps the most famous incident occurred in 1984 when Bernard Hinault, a five-time winner of the Tour, punched a shipyard worker who was part of a protest over layoffs that stopped the early season Paris-Nice race.
None of the riders who rode into the cloud of gas appeared to suffer any lingering effects once the race resumed.
But unruly roadside behavior was responsible for the loss last week of Vincenzo Nibali, the 2014 winner and one of few riders with the potential to defeat Froome. As colored smoke from a flare obscured a section of the climb to the Alpine ski resort of L’Alpe d’Huez, Nibali’s handlebars became entangled in the strap of a camera being held over a barrier by a spectator, hurling him to the pavement. While Nibali remounted and finished, making about 30 seconds of the time he lost, the Italian was diagnosed with a fractured vertebra.
More overt action has been taken by some spectators against Froome and other members of Sky. Froome’s status in the sport had been unclear after he tested positive for excessively high amounts of the asthma drug salbutamol during the Vuelta a España in September. He was cleared shortly before the Tour. Neither the International Cycling Union nor the World Anti-Doping Agency offered much in the way of an explanation for the decision.
At their mildest, fans who were dissatisfied with that outcome have held up signs demanding that Sky or Froome quit the race. Froome and Thomas has been booed, and Froome has said that fans have thrown liquid at him. At the extreme end, on the Alpe d’Huez stage, several spectators appeared to take jabs at Froome and at least one man was seen being detained by police afterward. Some flares seemed to have been directed at Froome. While organizers have now banned flares, exactly how that will be enforced is not clear.
In what didn’t appear to be an effective way to ease the tension, Dave Brailsford, the head of Team Sky, lashed out at French fans when the Tour took a day off on Monday.
“We raced in Italy and Chris’s case was open when we were at the Tour of Italy, and the Italians were fantastic,” Brailsford told a news conference. “It just seems to be a French thing. Like a French cultural thing.”
Although the Tour has clearly been Sky’s chief objective since the team’s founding, Brailsford suggested that he may no longer come to the race.
“If you want the best riders in the world to come to your country to take part, then maybe treat them with a little more respect,” he said.
“If you don’t want them to come, then maybe race only with French teams, that might work.” he said. “But if you want them to come then treat them with the same respect that you’d want for your team.”
There is no obvious answer to fan misbehavior. Police officers are stationed at every road crossing along each day’s route, and line fan lures like the summits of climbs. The crowds are salted with plain clothes officers, 128 police motorcyclists are on the road each day and 2,290 riot police officers are stationed out of sight every day.
The crowds, of course, are not the only hazard for the riders, as Phillipe Gilbert, a Belgian, was reminded on Tuesday. After crossing the Portet d’Aspet pass ahead of the field alone, he locked up his back wheel on its narrow and steep descent, hit a stone wall and vanished from sight of the TV camera.
He later re-emerged, gave a thumbs up and remounted.
The incident occurred not far from a monument marking the spot where Fabio Casartelli, an Italian riding for the American Motorola team, died after a similar mishap in 1995.
