Malaysia Airlines MH17: Tour De France Riders Pay Respects To The Dead (PHOTOS)

Tour De France Riders Pay Respects To Malaysian Airline Dead

The Tour de France delayed the start of today's stage to hold a minute's silence in memory of those killed on the Malaysian Airlines plane that crashed on Thursday.

Malaysian Airlines MH17, which came down in eastern Ukraine killing all 298 people on board, is believed to have been shot down by pro-Russian rebels although they and the Ukraine government have both denied any involvement in the tragedy.

Riders on the Tour were preparing for stage 13 on Friday, the first into the Alps, when the tribute was made with members of two Dutch teams in the race are also wearing black armbands for the day. The Malaysian flight that was bound for Kuala Lumpar took off from Schiphol Airport and 173 of the casualties were from the Netherlands.

The plane was shot down in an "act of terrorism", Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko has claimed while US authorities said intelligence analysis showed the plane had been hit by a surface-to-air missile, killing all crew and passengers.

Le Tour's tribute to Malaysian Airline MH17

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