Chris Froome pulls out of La Vuelta due to a crash

DOUBLE Tour de France winner Chris Froome fractured a bone in his foot following an accident and has been forced to withdraw from La Vuelta.

It came as a huge disappointment to the 30-year-old rider who was trying to become only the third man in history to win both the Tour de France and La Vuelta in the same year.

He had started the tricky 138km 11^th stage of the race from Andorra la Vela to Cortals d’Encamp on September 2, just 78 seconds behind the leader but he said that he was ‘knocked sideways into a barrier and stone wall’ quite early in the race. Despite this, he continued on but finished almost nine minutes behind the winner of the stage, Mikel Landa but hoped that he would be able to participate in the next stage.

Unfortunately, following an x-ray, which showed the extent of the broken bone in his foot, he had no option but to announce retirement from the race.

There have been a number of riders pulling out because of injury, with one rider recently being hit by an auxiliary motorcycle and Sergio Paulinho riding for the Russian team Tinkoff-Saxo having to have 17 stiches in his leg after colliding with a TV motorbike.

At the end of the 11^th stage, Italian Fabio Aru leads the race by 27 seconds from Joaquin Rodriguez of Spain.