re Rolland, who lagged 22:51 minutes behind Froome overall at the start

The Brisbane Lions are sticking by a pledge to review the tenure of under-fire boss Justin Leppitsch at seasons end but the embattled coach says its AFL head office that should come under the microscope.The Lions slumped to another devastating loss on Saturday night, thumped by Adelaide by 138 points.Two of the clubs worst losses in their history have now come in the last fortnight, following on from last weeks 94-point home defeat to Port Adelaide.The third-year coach deflected questions about his job security after Saturday nights game, saying they were for the Lions board to answer.Instead, he took aim at the AFL over the concessions handed to expansion side Greater Western Sydney, whose success this year could not be further from Brisbanes lowly performance.Weve been given nothing as a footy club, Leppitsch said.GWS bought Heath Shaw and (Shane) Mumford with the extra concessions they got with cash.Youve got to understand there is a system behind what you see out there on gameday.(Some) get more concessions and some dont.Coaching and what I do is a very important part but its still only one part of a very big picture that we play in this game to win an AFL premiership.Brisbane chairman Bob Sharpless said Leppitsch, who has a contract to coach in 2017, wouldnt be assessed until September.The club will stick to the path that it has outlined in recent weeks, the statement read.He will coach the remaining three games before being reviewed once the season is over.The Lions managed just one goal compared to Adelaides 13 in the second half of their capitulation to a far superior Crows outfit.Describing his inexperienced players as boys against men, Leppitsch admitted he feared the effect Brisbanes massive losses were having on senior stars such as Tom Rockliff and Dayne Zorko.Theyve been at this club a long time and we havent given them a lot of success, Leppitsch said.Theyve got to hold up a lot. Theyve got to play with a lot of young kids and it must be draining for them to do that week-in, week-out.As a footy club, weve got to protect them as much as we protect our kids because Im sure theyre hitting the age now where theyre thinking well, wheres this club going? as well.I dont think theyre questioning their future here but we just have to keep reminding them that good times are going to come. Blake Griffin Jersey . How great will be revealed in the next couple of days at the board of governors meeting in Pebble Beach, Calif. 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SAINT-GERVAIS-LES-BAINS, France -- If Chris Froome wins the Tour de France on Sunday, it wont have been an easy ride to the Champs Elysees.After a pile-up forced him to run up part of Mont Ventoux last week, the two-time champion escaped from another crash on Friday during a chaotic and spectacular penultimate Alpine stage held in stormy and wet weather.Two days before the ceremonial ride to Paris, rain played havoc at the Tour, causing many crashes and reshuffling places in the general classification. But Froome was lucky enough to escape with no serious injury, and even emerge with a bigger lead overall.A crash like that could have gone either way, and Im grateful that nothing is injured, Froome said. Never a quiet day on the Tour.Since he took his rivals by surprise with a daring downhill attack that earned him the race leaders yellow jersey on the eighth stage, media reports have portrayed Froome as the inevitable winner. Day after day, as his overall lead built up, Froome kept insisting that the Tour was not over.Fridays 19th stage proved him right.Froome, who won the Tour in 2013 and 2015 and crashed out of the 2014 race, hit the ground with former Tour champion Vincenzo Nibali in a descent, soon after Romain Bardet launched a decisive attack to post the first French victory at this years race.Froome did not panic, quickly borrowed a teammates bike and salvaged his torn yellow jersey after crossing the finish line 36 seconds behind Bardet. The Frenchman climbed to second place overall after Froomes previous closest rival, Bauke Mollema, crashed and never recovered.Froome increased his lead by 19 seconds, holding a lead of 4 minutes, 11 seconds over Bardet, with two-time runner-up Nairo Quintana of Colombia moving up to third, 4:27 back.Froome slipped on road paint as he crossed a white line and hit the ground just 13.5 kilometers (8 miles) from the finish of the nervy 146-kilometer (91-mile) ride to Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc featuring four ascents.He was able to continue racing after swapping bikes with teammate Geraint Thomas.I think that I hit one of the white lines on the road and lost my front wheel, Froome said at the finish, his right knee heavily bandaged. Im okay, Im lucky that nothing is seriously injured.Froome was descending at a relatively cautious speed of almost 45 kph (28 mph) when he fell. With his jersey torn, blood dripping down his right leg, cuts and bruises on his back and blood on his right elbow, Froome understandably looked uncomfortable on Thomas bike.Despite the circumstances, Froome caught up with the group of favorites in the brutal final climb to Le Bettex with the help of teammate Wouter Poels.ddddddddddddFroome crossed the line grimacing in pain, then put his arm around Poels to thank him for the support.I just lost a bit of skin but today, Froome said. It was great for me to have teammates all the way up until the finish there, with Wout in particular and all the guys. It was a great team effort and it feels great to be one day closer to Paris.Mollema was one of the many riders who fell in the damp weather, with Daniel Navarro and Tom Dumoulin forced to abandon.Im not too badly injured, just a hip and elbow, said Mollema, who crashed at a roundabout as his hopes of finishing on the podium in Paris disappeared. The classification is gone. Im 10th now, but that was not the goal.Bardet was the days big winner after posting his second Tour stage win.I rode with my instinct. Im second overall, I won the stage, its beautiful, he said.Spaniard Joaquim Rodriguez finished the stage in second place, in the same time as Alejandro Valverde, 23 seconds back. In the overall, Adam Yates dropped from third to fourth, nine seconds behind Quintana.The day had started quietly for Froome, who joked with Peter Sagan at the front of the pack after a group of 20 riders immediately jumped away from the peloton. The best-placed rider in the breakaway was Frenchman Pierre Rolland, who lagged 22:51 minutes behind Froome overall at the start, and Team Sky did not chase.But the ideal scenario changed dramatically when the weather turned wet. As rain started to fall, Michael Matthews was among the first escapees to be caught a few kilometers from the summit of the punishing Montee de Bisane, a 12-kilometer climb with an average gradient of eight percent.Rolland then moved away from his breakaway companions in the ski resort of Les Saisies, with former world champion Rui Costa following right on his wheel. But the Frenchman slid off the road on the descent and heavily hit the tarmac. With his jersey lacerated and covered with dirt, Rolland remounted his bike after consulting with the race doctor and finished the stage.Froome needs to negotiate one more tricky mountain stage on Saturday before the ceremonial ride to Paris.Tomorrow is going to be hard, its going to be really hard and Im sure that Im going to be a bit stiff after today, he said. Hopefully I can rely on my teammates and its just one last push.---AP Sports Writer Andrew Dampf contributed to this report. ' ' '