In a comment on a previous post, Mark Spahn wrote:
Pardon my unfamiliarity with bicycle-racing terminology, but does "attack" have a special meaning? Nibali, who precedes Froome on the course, looks back and sees Froome slowing down to fix a brake problem. (How can this be if Froome is the "leader", who by definition is ahead of everyone else?) Then Nibali comes back to Froome and starts attacking Froome. With what weapon? With his fists? With fierce invective? This makes no sense to me.
Mark is playing dumb, but let me explain anyway, for those who aren't. In a bicycle race, to attack another rider is to forge ahead of the other with a sudden burst of speed. The hope is that the person attacked will not be able to respond, in which case the attacker can "take time" out of him or her. The goal of the Tour de France (a three-week stage race) is to finish with the least elapsed time, so taking a few seconds (or minutes) out of one's rivals here and there can make the difference between winning and getting second place (or between finishing ninth and 10th). In 1989, Greg LeMond began the final stage (an individual time trial) 50 seconds behind Laurent Fignon. LeMond completed the course 58 seconds faster than Fignon, which gave him an eight-second overall victory. Every second counts!
Addendum: Don't confuse Froome being ahead of Nibali overall but being behind him (physically) at a particular point in a particular stage. The best riders stay together in a bunch until someone attacks, at which point those who can respond to the attack do so. Those who fail to respond are said to be "dropped." Many riders got dropped during today's climb up L'Alpe d'Huez, for example.
