Fans at the roadside are part of what makes the Tour de France so special – the colour and vibrance they add to the famous mountain-top finishes as memorable as some of the racing itself.

ASO and the Tour de France have published many videos, pleading with fans not to run alongside riders, not to light smoke flares and to respect the race – but the message clearly isn’t getting through to some.

Incidents like this are not uncommon – Zdenek Stybar’s hopes of winning Paris-Roubaix in 2013, for example, were ended by an over-enthusiastic roadside fan, while Froome has already been in trouble for punching a fan on the Col de Peyresourde this year.

But while it can be dismissed as a racing incident, and in the past such occurrences have been, for the race leader to lose the yellow jersey – effectively punished for attacking – in such circumstances would have been a travesty.

So, what now – Porte said “the crowd were all over the road” at the point in which the incident happened, just before the barriers, while stage winner Thomas de Gendt added: “There were too many people in the last kilometre, not even space for a single motorbike.”

To barrier the entirety of the course is, evidently, not practical – the logistics alone of laying, in some cases, more than 200km of barriers and removing them in time for the roads re-opening to the public is not feasible.

However, that close to the summit finish there needs to be more control over the roadside spectators – to lose them would be to lose part of the sport’s heritage, but fans’ attitudes need to be changed.

The race is not about them, it’s about the riders. As the Tour’s pleading videos state – “respect the race”.