Irish duo avoid trouble as mountains beckon

Ireland’s Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche survived another nerve-shredder at the Tour de France yesterday, the duo crossing the line in the same time as stage winner Marcel Kittel after avoiding a nasty pile-up with two kilometres to go.

Roche (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) was 22nd on the stage and is now 41st overall while Martin (Garmin-SHARP) was 74th and is still 13th overall.

The latter’s teammate Jack Bauer hit the deck in that high-speed collision but remounted to finish, as did Team Sky’s Edvald Boasson-Hagen, but the latter broke his shoulder and last night was forced to withdraw.