Praise for Wiggins go-slow after Tour sabotage

Yellow jersey Bradley Wiggins was praised for calling a truce on a controversial day at the Tour de France as the race was sabotaged by spectators laying tacks in the road.

The Tour resumes with today’s 158.5-kilometre 15th stage from Samatan to Pau with organisers having made a formal complaint to French police after tacks caused around 30 punctures on yesterday’s 14th stage.

With the day’s breakaway challenging for the stage victory up ahead, Team Sky’s Wiggins quickly realised there was an issue when numerous riders around him suffered punctures.

Jean-Francois Pescheux, competitions director of Tour organisers Amaury Sports Organisation, said: “We couldn’t neutralise it straight away because we didn’t know what had happened. Fortunately (Team) Sky neutralised the race.

“There were around 50 riders together in the front peloton at the top and about 30 of them ended up with punctures. Some of them had three or four nails in their tyres. They are imbeciles to have done this.”

The incident occurred on the Mur de Peguere, a 9.3km category one climb, and apparently after the escape had passed.

The gradient of the slope ramps up severely, to 18%, in the second half of the ascent, which is as narrow as a single car and shaded by trees, meaning team support vehicles were unable to respond to enable quick wheel changes for riders, including defending champion Cadel Evans (BMC Racing).

Team Sky sports director Sean Yates said: “We saw it as a bit of an unwritten rule not to push on in that situation.

“Bradley asserted his authority a bit with the other teams to keep everything together.”

Luis-Leon Sanchez (Rabobank) won the stage after making a solo attack from his escape companions, while Wiggins rolled in more than 18 minutes behind in a neutralised peloton.

Wiggins, who changed bikes as a result of a mechanical, said: “It’s quite sad and hopefully that’s not going to continue.

“There’s nothing you can do about it. We just have to get on with it.

“We’re out there, quite vulnerable at times, very close to the public on climbs and we’re there to be shot at, literally.”

Wiggins, who is seeking to become the Tour’s first British winner on Sunday, enters the 15th stage, which is likely to end in a sprint finish, with a lead of two minutes five seconds over Team Sky colleague Chris Froome.

Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) is 2mins 23secs adrift in third and Evans 3:19 back in fourth.