Tour de France Stage 16: Plaza beats Sagan, Sky's Thomas crashes hard but finishes

Peter Sagan of Tinkoff-Saxo is still looking for his first stage win of this year's Tour de France, finishing second for the fifth time in the race despite a terrific descent to the finish of Stage 16 in Gap as he tried to chase down the day's winner, Ruben Plaza of Lampre-Merida.

Behind, in the GC group, Sky's Geraint Thomas was pushed wide on a corner on that same descent as Giant-Shimano's Warren Barguil mistimed his braking,the Welsh rider hitting his head against a telegraph pole as he exited the bend at speed.

Fears that he might have been seriously injured were allayed as Thomas, sixth overall this morning and a key support rider for race leader Chris Froome with the Alps looming ahead of tomorrow's rest day, managed to finish the stage.

Sky will however be without the services of British champion Peter Kennaugh in the mountains, who abandoned during today's stage after struggling with illness for several days.

Sagan, who has the consolation of extending his lead in the points competition, which he looks set to win for the fourth year in a row, crossed the line around half a minute behind the Spanish rider Plaza, whose previous Grand Tour stage win came almost a decade ago in the 2005 Vuelta.

Both riders had been in a big escape group that had formed early on during today's 201 kilometre stage from Bourg de Péage, which represented perhaps the last chance for some teams to salvage something from this year’s 102nd edition of the race.

Also in that group was Lotto-Belisol's Adam Hansen, riding his 12th consecutive Grand Tour, who got off the front and was subsequently joined by Austrian champion Marco Haller of Katusha.

They were caught on the final climb, the Col de la Manse, crested 12 kilometres from the finish, with Plaza attacking to be the first rider over on his way to his first Tour de France stage win.

The same descent provided one of the most famous incidents in the race's 112-year history in 2003 when Josep Beloki crashed in front of Lance Armstrong and the American, on his way to winning the fifth of the seven titles he has since been stripped of, had to go across a field to rejoin the race after avoiding the Spaniard.

There was drama too today as Sagan tried in vain to reel in Plaza, almost coming off a couple of times as he took risks on corners, and again with that crash involving Thomas as the overall contenders' group negotiated the descent well after the front pair had crossed the line.

Defending champion Vincenzo Nibali of Astana, who started the day 8 minutes 17 seconds behind Froome, had attacked on the climb and was allowed to go by the race leader, the Italian clawing back nearly half a minute fo his deficit today.

Thomas meanwhile lost just 37 seconds despite that crash and remains sixth overall.

Reaction to follow.