GAP, France -- Hurtling too fast for comfort down a twisty, turning foothill of the Alps, Tour de France leader Chris Froome faced a high-speed choice between risk and reward. The Briton knew that 10 years previously almost day for day on exactly the same descent, Joseba Beloki shattered his leg, elbow and wrist bones rounding a corner too fast and Lance Armstrong plowed into a field to avoid the prone Spaniard howling in pain. So Froome wanted to go easy. Trouble is, Alberto Contador didnt. Against his better instincts, Froome chased after his Spanish rival who rode hell for leather on the treacherous downhill with asphalt made gooey and slippery by the July heat. Just like Armstrong, flirting with disaster nearly cost Froome the Tour. Contador crashed as he rounded a right-hand corner, forcing Froome to swerve around him off the road, onto the grass and to put a foot down to stay upright. Unlike Contador, who bloodied his right knee, Froome escaped with just a fright. Still, this drama on Tuesdays Stage 16 proved a point that Froome and his Sky team have made time and again: despite his big lead, Froome wont savour victory until hes on the cobbles of the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Sunday. "One second you could be going for the finish and about to win a race and the next youre lying in a ditch somewhere, with a broken bone," Froome said. "I knew it was the descent where Beloki crashed so I was purposefully laying off a little bit and trying to take it easy but at the same time also trying to keep touch with the Saxobank guys who were really pushing the limits." By that, Froome meant Contador and his Saxo-Tinkoff teammate from the Czech Republic, Roman Kreuziger, who are third and fourth in the overall standings but more than four minutes off the lead. Opportunities for them to claw back time are fast running out. The finish line in Paris is now just 668 kilometres (415 miles) and five days away. To their credit, they arent simply accepting defeat but are harassing Froome all the way. If Froome wins, the way his rivals have repeatedly tested the British rider over the three weeks should give him the extra satisfaction of a victory hard-earned. Stage 16 wound from Provence past vineyards, lavender fields and villages clinging to hillsides to the town of Gap, a staging post for what promises to be a grand finale in the Alps for the 100th Tour. For a long while, it seemed that the 168-kilometre (104-mile) trek to Gap from Vaison-la-Romaine, a charming town with old ruins near the Mont Ventoux where Froome won on Sunday, would be one of those Tour stages that dont amount to much. Apparently keeping their powder dry for the Alps, Froome and other main protagonists allowed 26 riders -- none of them a podium threat -- to escape far ahead. The stage winner, Rui Costa, later emerged from that group, riding away on the days last climb, a 9.5-kilometre (6-mile) long ascent to Col de Manse, and then zipping down to Gap. Although the Manse climb is less arduous and less steep than the Ventoux, where Froome blasted past Contador, the Spaniard and Kreuziger used to it test the Briton and his Australian wingman, Richie Porte. Several times, Contador tried accelerating away. Kreuziger did, too. But Porte and then Froome alone wouldnt let them get away. To cool the asphalt, authorities doused the top of the climb with water. But Porte said the road down from there was sticky and slippery -- just as it was in the heat wave of 2003, when Belokis back wheel slid away from him on a bend, hurling him to the ground. Armstrong went on to win that Tour -- only to have that and all six of his other victories in cyclings premier race stripped from him last year for doping. On Tuesday, touching their brakes caused wheels to slip, Porte said. "All of us had a bit of a moment coming down there, losing the front wheel, back wheel," he said. Yet Contador was flying, with Froome in his wake. Rounding a sharp right-hander, "the bike got away from me," Contador said. "It was really difficult. In normal conditions I wouldnt have slipped like that, but it was very difficult terrain," said the 2007 and 09 champion, who was stripped of his 10 title for a failed doping test. "Sometimes you have to go for it, whether its at the start or the end of a stage." Froome said Contador "was taking too many risks." "All teams are starting to get desperate now and theyre taking uncalculated risks," he said. "In my opinion it was a bit dangerous from Alberto to ride like that, its not good." Worryingly for Froome, theres worse to come. Thursdays Stage 18 not only includes a double ascent to the ski station of Alpe dHuez, with its 21 hairpin bends, but also a harrowing descent that several riders have voiced concerns about. Having seen that Froome wasnt completely comfortable chasing after Contador on Tuesday, the risk now is that his rivals could try to unsettle him again on Thursdays downhill from Col de Sarenne. "It is a very dangerous descent. The road surface is not great," Froome said. "And there arent any barriers on the corners, so if you go over the corner then you will fall down a long way. Its a dangerous descent and I hope the riders are aware of that, that they dont take risks like they did today." ------ AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire contributed. Cheap Air Jordan 3 Sale . 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The Golden State Warriors took the NBA by storm with their willingness to shoot 3-pointers from anywhere, at any time. They won a title, played for another and changed the way teams think about the 3.The precedent was set in college basketball, where current Louisville coach Rick Pitino set the trend and the rest followed.Rick Pitino went to it right away, but everybody else didnt, Villanova coach Jay Wright said. Gradually, everyones realizing the effect and power of that shot.Pitino, then coaching at Providence, embraced the 3-point shot immediately after it was added to college basketball in 1986. The Friars went to the 1987 Final Four behind sharpshooter Billy Donovan and their ability to knock down the 3.Though teams were reluctant to follow suit at first, the 3-point shot became a viable weapon in college basketball. Smaller teams saw it as a way to compete with bigger, more athletic teams, while the teams with big frontcourts like the 3 to help space the court.The percentage of shots taken from the 3-point arc reached an all-time high during the 2015-16 season, with teams combining for 35.4 percent. Three of the four schools that reached the Final Four attempted more than 40 percent of their shots from behind the arc: National champion Villanova (42), Syracuse (42) and Oklahoma (40).Contested 2-point shots dont win games in college or the NBA, said Northern Arizona coach Jack Murphy, an advance scout for the NBAs Denver Nuggets from 2006-09. So I just think youre seeing a lot more teams play smaller or play with more capable 4-men.The trend in the college game makes sense.The NBA 3-point arc is 23 feet, 9 inches from the basket, while the NCAA line is 19-9. The shorter shot is not only easier to make, it broadens the range of players who can hit it.Zone defense is far more prevalent in college, creating opportunities for teams to shoot over the top or work the ball inside and kick out to shooters.College basketball also has a much wider range of talent; a skinny, pure shooter might be able to thrive in the college game, but usually has no shot at playing in the NBA.And theres this: Outscoring your opponent takes a lower shoooting percentage from 3-point range than inside the arc.dddddddddddd.The one thing: One out of three 3s equals one out of two 2s, Arizona coach Sean Miller said. You think about that. If youre a 37 percent 3-point shooter, that doesnt necessarily get anybody excited, but if you take good 3s and you make 37 percent, thats a good shot for your team. Because 1 of 2 from 2, everybody signs up for 50 percent from 2.Its more than just the way the college game is set up. A transformation of skill sets contributed.Almost since the inception of the game, coaches took their biggest players, parked them near the basket and left them there so they could shoot from close range.As the game evolved, so did the aspirations of the biggest players on the court.Instead of just catching the ball in the post and shooting hook shots, they wanted to be ballhandlers and perimeter shooters. These big kids worked on their skills and, after years of resistance, their coaches began to help them.The tallest players often arrived on college campuses with an entirely new cache of skills and coaches embraced it, using their ability to shoot the ball to stretch defenses.Youre seeing a lot more thought put into coaching on the youth level, Murphy said. Theyre putting kids in positions where they can handle the ball and shoot perimeter shots. I mean, the national championship was won by a 3-point-shooting big man. Thats just what youre seeing in the game.That big man was Villanovas Kris Jenkins.The 6-foot-6, 235-pound forward is a bruiser inside, but also has deep range on the perimeter. Last April, he hit one of the most dramatic shots in NCAA Tournament history, pulling up without hesitation for a long 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Wildcats a 77-74 victory over North Carolina.The Wildcats philosophy wont change with their title defense, either.Im OK with 38 to 40 percent, Wright said. Thats good for us.Based upon the statistics, so are many other coaches.---AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston in Philadelphia contributed to this story. ' ' '