Tour de France 2017: Chris Froome retains lead as Michael Matthews takes second win

Michael Matthews won his second stage of the Tour de France with victory on stage 16, as Britain's Chris Froome retained the leader's yellow jersey.

18 July 2017, 10:42pm

1 min read

Matthews held off Edvald Boasson Hagen (r) to win his second stage of this year's Tour

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The 165km stage came alive at the end as crosswinds split the peloton before Matthews held off Edvald Boasson Hagen.

Froome leads by 18 seconds over Italy's Fabio Aru and 23 seconds over France's Romain Bardet with five stages to go.

Marcel Kittel was dropped early on a bad day for his Quick-Step team after Dan Martin lost time on the leaders.

The German sprinter was looking for his sixth stage win but Matthews' Sunweb team pulled hard to distance him, with the Australian also winning the intermediate sprint to move 29 points behind Kittel in the green jersey points classification.

Ireland's Martin was caught behind a split on the run-in to Romans-sur-Isere and dropped to seventh overall as Britain's Simon Yates moved up to sixth and extended his lead in the best young rider's white jersey competition.