On Thursday's leg of the tour, Geraint Thomas of Team Sky won the 12th stage in the Alpe d'Huez but Vincenzo Nibali quit after a spectacular crash with a group of Luxembourg supporters.
The course for Thursday took cyclists from Bourg-Saint-Maurice 175.5 km to the mountain of Alpe d'Huez.
© twitter/LeTour
A famous pack of cyclists formed the front of the favourite group: Valverde, Barguil, Majka, Zakarin, Nieve and Kruijswijk all vied for first place. Around 73 km before the finish line, Dutch cyclist Steven Kruijswijk broke away from the group. He was four minutes ahead of the group, but even this didn't suffice for a win in the end.
UK cyclist Geraint Thomas won the 12th stage and is also the leader in the general ranking.
Luxembourg cyclist Bob Jungels came in 13th, 3 minutes and 9 seconds after the winner crossed the line. In the general ranking of this year's Tour de France, Jungels is also in 13th place, 9 minutes and 9 seconds behind the yellow jersey.
Bob Jungels
Vincenzo Nibali gives up after collision
Around 4 km before of the finish line, Luxembourg supporters got a bit too close to the action. Italian cyclist Vincenzo Nibali fell and collided with a group of Luxembourg supporters.
Shortly after the incident, Nibali announced that he would be giving up in this year's race.
On Thursday evening, Nibali's team stated that he had fractured a vertebrae in the fall. Eye witness accounts said that a police motorbike driving into a group of spectators had braked directly in front of Nibali, causing him to fall of his bike. The accident propelled Nibali off his bike, straight into a group of Luxembourg supporters standing at the side of the race course.
A slow motion video of the incident also purports to show that Nibali got caught in the strap of a camera, causing the Italian to fall.
