Murat (France) (AFP)

The fire from the old Puy Mary volcano destroyed the hopes of the French in the general classification.

Neither Guillaume Martin nor Romain Bardet participated in the final eruption.

The two tricolors, quickly released, were rejected out of the top 10.

"I am very far now."

Annoyed, Romain Bardet now finds himself 11th in the standings, relegated to 3 minutes from the yellow jersey Primoz Roglic.

"It's a shame because everything has been going well so far," bit his fingers the leader of AG2R La Mondiale, diminished by a sudden fall in the middle of the stage.

From the Col de Neronne, the penultimate climb of the day, the French climber, twice on the Tour podium (2nd in 2016, 3rd in 2017), was taken down when the most brutal percentages arose.

Still fourth in the morning, 30 seconds behind the Slovenian leader, the Auvergnat, on his land, had other plans.

"My dream is to wear the yellow jersey", announced Romain Bardet two days before the Grand Départ of the Tour in Nice.

"I did five times in the top ten of the Tour de France. Apart from the podiums (in 2016 and 2017), nobody remembers".

The opportunity to put on the golden fabric, he perhaps let it pass in Laruns on Sunday where he conceded 8 seconds on + Rogla + who also grabbed 11 seconds of bonuses.

- "I was cursed" -

Already in difficulty by a fall, the 2018 vice-world champion suffered a new twist of fate on the road to Puy Mary: he was thrown to the ground 90 kilometers from the finish, in a downhill curve.

“It couldn't have been worse today, I fell to 65 km / h, he explains. I stumbled and I hit my head. I had trouble finding my senses immediately. I have great pain in my right leg. I lost all my sensations in my fall, I was cursed today ".

No question for him now to fight for a place of honor, which "nobody remembers": "I will recover and come back for stage victories", he displays.

"It's a disbursement that cannot be made up," confirms his teammate Mikaël Cherel, especially disillusioned by the fall of his leader.

“When I got to the back of the pack, he was on the ground,” he says. “I was very scared to see him get up and fall back. It seemed to me that he couldn't stand up. It's already complicated to fight against these planes at the front ... "

The cruising speed of the Jumbo was also fatal to Guillaume Martin.

Surprise podium in the Tour de France until Friday, the leader of Cofidis (3rd) was also left behind in the Col de Neronne.

- "I was dead" -

"The penultimate climb was fatal to me, the tempo was really too high for me, says the Normand. I was let go".

Isolated, he left a lot of energy in the six kilometers of transition before the last slopes: "I did the whole valley in gear 15 or 20 seconds from the first group. Suddenly in the final climb, I was dead. ", confides the climber, also fell on this Tour, Tuesday during the stage of the islands.

"A fall is never trivial. The day after the stage, it bothered him a little but nothing more," said his teammate Nicolas Edet.

"Three minutes on a Grand Tour is not much either," prefers to relativize Guillaume Martin, who, unlike Romain Bardet, never made it into the top 10 of the Tour.

His best result is his 12th place in 2019.

"I'm not going to give up the general classification all of a sudden," he announces, "disappointed but certainly not dejected".

© 2020 AFP