Despite his comfortable lead in the Tour de France, Chris Froome heads into the Alps — the last big hurdle between him and victory in Paris — on the defensive.
Not against other contenders for the podium, they are long gone in the British rider’s rear-view mirror, but against skeptics created by the cheating of Lance Armstrong and other dopers, and against the legions of fans they betrayed.
For many of those cycling fans, Froome’s performances are so good that they must be too good to be true. The leader of Team Sky said one spectator even hurled a cup of urine at him at the weekend, shouting: “Doper.”
Photo: AFP
In short, Froome finds himself in the impossible position of being damned by his own success. No matter how many times he insists that he is clean, the words fall on deaf ears. As they would — after all, Armstrong used to say that, too.
Froome understands that. He knows that the maillot jaune he wears has been so soiled by the deceit of those who wore it before him that some of that dirt, deservedly or not, is going to rub off on him, too.
Being doubted, being hauled over of the coals of suspicion day in, day out is the bill that must be paid now for winning a post-Armstrong Tour, especially when you are crushing your rivals with apparent ease like the American did in the seven Tour victories that were later stripped from him.
Photo: AP
Two weeks in, the skepticism is getting under Froome’s very thick skin. It is hard to find a more mild-mannered chap in the peloton than the gangly, sometimes awkward, Kenya-born Briton, but as he prepares for the Alps, the ultimate test at this Tour, a hardening in his attitude and tone is unmistakable.
He blames “very irresponsible” media for turning public opinion against him. He started on that theme on Saturday after the urine incident and developed it on Sunday after safely negotiating stage 15 that ended with a bunch sprint won by Andre Greipel.
It was the German Lotto-Soudal rider’s third victory at this Tour and it left Froome’s large lead intact.
Photo: Reuters
“If people are led to believe that these performances are not legitimate, that’s what’s going to push them to start booing, and to start punching and spitting and throwing urine on riders,” Froome said.
For those who are still listening, he again repeated that “times have changed” from the Armstrong era.
“This isn’t the wild west that it was 10 or 15 years ago,” he said. “Of course, there are still going to be riders who take risks in this day and age, but they are the minority. It was the other way around 10 or 15 years ago. There is no reason in this day and age for that level of suspicion to continue. There’s absolutely no reason.”
Photo: AFP
Still, French police took no chances. Following the urine assault, they posted half a dozen officers around Team Sky’s bus at the start of Sunday’s 183km stage from Mende to Valence, France.
Due its flat finish, stage 15 represented the last opportunity for heavy, muscular sprinters to shine before the light, but strong climbers like Froome take back the spotlight in the Alps in the last week after a rest day today.
It meant that sprinters’ teams would not let a breakaway group of riders steal the stage victory from under their noses.
Photo: AP
The peloton rode so furiously that Mark Cavendish, the only rider to beat Greipel in a massed bunch sprint at this year’s Tour, was not able to compete for the win in Valence because he was dropped early in the hilly stage that flattened out at the end.
Cavendish said stomach problems kept him up the previous night, leaving him feeling empty.
Telling himself “you have to hang on here,” Greipel managed to stay with the pace.
He credited his Lotto-Soudal teammates for positioning him “in the right spot” for the final sprint. From there, he did the rest, choosing just the right time to accelerate away in the final 300m.
“I had the power in my legs to finish it,” Greipel said. “It’s all about the legs. Mother Nature gave me this.”
Fellow German John Degenkolb of Team Giant-Alpecin was second, Team Katusha’s Alexander Kristoff third. Greipel also won the second and fifth stages.
Yesterday’s stage was due to take the Tour into the foothills of the Alps to Gap. With two moderate climbs followed by a downhill finish, it was likely to suit punchy riders lower down in the overall standings who are looking for a win before the podium challengers do battle in the really big mountains.
Out on the road at least, everything is going to plan for Froome. He finished safely in the peloton with the other podium favorites and there were no changes in their overall placings.
Froome was leading second-placed Nairo Quintana of the Movistar Team by 3 minutes, 10 seconds. Tejay van Garderen of the BMC Racing Team remained 3:32 back in third.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS