Froome won his third Tour de France overall in Paris on Sunday.
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In a typically frantic sprint finish, Greipel timed his charge to perfection.
At the start of the stage, Froome dropped back to his Team Sky auto to collect bottles of beer and distributed them to each of his eight teammates for a celebratory round.
“It feels like a privilege to be in this positon”, Froome said as he praised his Sky team-mates for their support after a day which saw German Andre Greipel win the final stage on Paris’ Champs Elysees.
With 14 days in 2013, 16 days in 2015 and 14 days in 2016 Froome has a total of 44 days with the yellow jersey.
“As it stands right now, with the focus being on the Tour, it’s very hard to commit to the Giro”, said Froome of a race he last did in 2010.
Froome rode a special yellow bike to match his yellow leader’s jersey, helmet, gloves and shoes.
“It’s a course that suits me well, I took bronze in London in the last Olympics and it would be incredible to medal again this year”, he said, referring to the time trial.
Sky, managed by former British Cycling mastermind David Brailsford, have now produced four of the last five Tour de France winners, starting with Bradley Wiggins in 2012, a run broken only by Vincenzo Nibali’s 2014 victory, Froome having been forced to withdraw from that race due to injury following a crash.
A tough penultimate day in the Alps ended up costing him a podium spot, as Romain Bardet and Nairo Quintana just edged him out, but his fourth place certainly bodes well for the future. The peloton laps a circuit around Paris and the Arc de Triomphe at a gentle pace, with a kind of non-agreession pact in force; there are no breakaway groups, and until the final lap, no sprints either. While probably the best value for money squad in cycling – Leicester to Sky’s Chelsea – and a model in terms of youth development, with eight “home-grown” riders in this year’s Tour team, they don’t have Sky’s budget or firepower.
Sagan, typically finished fastest but he left his push a fraction too late and failed to add to his three stage wins this year – his best return at the Tour. Norway’s Alexander Kristoff was third on Sunday. Meintjes has a background in Belgian racing – a spell at the UC Seraing and the Lotto-Belisol under-23 team – and picked up his first stage race win previous year.
He was down again in Stage 19, finishing the last ten kilometres on the bike of teammate Geraint Thomas, but there was to be no denying Froome, who has now won three of the last four Tours to join greats like Greg Lemond, Louison Bobet and Philippe Thys with three Tour victories.
Other Britons to shine this year included Steve Cummings of Cavendish’s Africa-based Dimension Data team, who won stage seven of the Tour, and Dan McLay of the Fortuneo-Vital Concept team who kept up with the best sprinters in the world in the first week of the Tour.
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Greipel had been yet earn a victory at this year’s edition of the race, leaving his personal record of winning at least once in every Grand Tour he has started since 2008 at risk.
