And the fact that he caught and gained considerable time on Froome on the final climb shows that Porte made the right decision not to follow Froome's attack. Presumably Froome did have to go into the red to get away, and it showed later.Sharkey wrote:He commented that he was right on the edge of being in the red. Froome was following so still had something left. When he went Richie could do nothing without really going in the red. So maybe not 'nothing left' but could not follow without really going in the red.
I guess if he had tried to follow Froome then he possibly would have had nothing left for the final climb.
While not covering Fuglsang's earlier attack (given he has just a few seconds behind Froome) was an error, at the point of the Froome attack, he could afford to let Froome get 20 seconds. What he needed to do was his best effort up the final climb to limit Fuglsang's gains, and in not following Froome, he played it smart.
Fuglsang looked pretty comfortable up the final climb, and I suspect has earned himself a lot of respect from his rivals. I doubt Porte (and others) will let him get away so easily in the future.