Today the Tour de France returned to Alpe d’Huez for the 30th time in race history. Over one million fans packed the slopes of France’s most famous climb to cheer on crowd favorites like Romain Bardet, Tom Dumoulin, and Steven Kruijswijk, but mostly to sing, drink, and wave flags at riders they hate, most notably Chris Froome. Unfortunately, a few dickhole fans took it too far.
Froome has been booed throughout the entire Tour (even at the opening presentation) for the way his strange doping case shook out, and fans have mocked him on the mountains, just like those dudes waving a big inhaler did in Italy. That’s fine. However, when a fan tries to push him off his bike, like this jabroni did, that’s crossing a line. Froome has punched overzealous fans before, and he’d have been right to smack this guy.
A few kilometers later, Vincenzo Nibali was brought down in an odd crash. It turned out that Nibali had run into a police motorbike slowed down because of the crowd and thick smoke from a fan’s flare. Nibali had looked great all stage, and he had to fight back hard to only lose 13 seconds. Tour organizers should give him that time back, especially since he closed faster than the winning group.
Update, 2:04 p.m. ET: Nibali has been taken to the hospital with a suspected vertebrae fracture.