As outspoken as Yates is unassuming, Cummings called on the eve of the Tour for British Olympic cycling selector Rod Ellingworth to resign, furious at having been left out of the Olympic road race team.
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The Vuelta, and the other grand tour race, the Giro d’Italia, are not really on the Team Sky rider’s radar even if only six men have managed to win all three of them.
In a statement, the label said Froome’s victory marked “number 13 at the Tour de France to the portfolio of Sidi’s great history”. “I imagine it will give him a lot of motivation to come back next year and fight for victory”.
However, turning back the face of the Tour as a sporting event, many believe this year’s race will not go down as one of the memorable because of Sky’s stranglehold.
“My performance might not reveal what this Tour has been for France, but there will be better editions”, the 25-year-old Bardet told a news conference.
It turned out to be one of two times in the race that Froome would crash while in the yellow jersey and pick up time regardless – a sign of the stranglehold he held on the race and his rivals.
The loss of Alberto Contador, who crashed on the opening two stages and then succumbed to illness on the ninth, robbed the race of one of its chief animators. The yellow jersey is now his.
Crucially, Bardet appears able to get through the first week of the Tour without struggling too much, while he is clearly learning year on year to find openings for himself.
“It’s got to be pretty discouraging”, Froome said, “looking at the guys who are there riding on the front of the race, setting that tempo, to keep the jersey on my shoulders”.
Froome has always been a good time-trial rider but is eclipsed by the Netherlands’ Tom Dumoulin in Stage 13.
The rain comes down on Friday and Froome is not the only rider to fall in treacherous conditions. But when he underperformed in the Tour de Suisse in June, Team Sky made a decision to switch him back to his usual role in support of Froome.
Froome joins Philippe Thys, Louison Bobet and Greg LeMond on three titles.
Froome also plans to compete in the time-trial, where he won bronze in London, after winning one race against the clock and finishing second in the other on Le Tour.
“It’s a course that suits me well”.
“Certainly this year, being the third time I’m in yellow at the Tour de France, I’ve taken it less on board”, he said.
Team Sky’s leader sealed his third Tour victory on the streets of Paris yesterday and will perform something of a victory lap on home soil at RideLondon on Sunday, effectively a leg loosener before flying to Rio for the Olympics.
“As this race has gone on people have got to know me a little bit better”. 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 a year ago.
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German time trial specialist Tony Martin withdrew midway through the stage with a knee problem, which will be a concern ahead of the Olympics. “There’s nearly 1,000 metres of climbing, it’s 60 kilometres in length and it’s extremely tough”. Froome’s team manager Sir Dave Brailsford said his rider had ended the Tour in “better shape than he ever has before” and predicted that he would “be knocking on the door for the top spot on the podium” in both events.
