“We are thrilled to have Tour de France champion Chris Froome riding for Team Sky at this year’s RideLondon-Surrey Classic”, race director Mick Bennett said in a statement.
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Andre Greipel of Germany won the 21st and last stage over the mostly flat 70-mile leg that concluded with eight laps of a circuit in downtown Paris, finishing on the cobblestones below the Arc de Triomphe.
“I hope I can be back next year to fight for it again”.
Froome stood on the top step of the podium on the Champs-Élysées Sunday evening ahead of France’s Romain Bardet, who was 2 minutes 52 seconds back, and Colombia’s Nairo Quintana, who trailed Froome by 3:08 overall.
Adam Yates of Australian team Orica-BikeExchange claimed fourth place plus the white jersey for best young rider.
Froome’s victory was arguably the easiest of his three so far, after the riders who had been expected to push him the hardest all fell out of contention early as a result of either injury, illness, poor form or bad luck.
In Rio, Froome will be competing in both the road race and the time trial.
Pole Rafal Majka won the polka dot jersey for the mountain classification and his Tinkoff teammate, world champion Peter Sagan, clinched a fifth green jersey for the points classification. But when a team is that strong – Froome himself acknowledged this was the strongest team ever fielded by Sky – they kill the race.
Kristoff attacked first but Greipel, with his Lotto-Soudal lead-out train doing its job on the final approach, burst clear to make sure he did not leave this Tour empty-handed.
Froome then added on TV: “It’s amazing, amazing”. “I’ve done a lot in terms of offering up my physiological data and trying to be open to people as much as I can while protecting a competitive advantage at the same time”.
Just as others before him such as Eddy Merckx, Miguel Indurain or even the disgraced Lance Armstrong, Froome proved this year that when one rider is simply better than the others, nothing can stop him.
“In addition to Chris, Team Sky is also bringing Geraint Thomas and Ian Stannard, proven winners in their own right, and with Steve Cummings (Dimension Data) also in the field, it means that four of Team GB’s five road racers for Rio are racing on Sunday”.
Froome has already vowed he will try for more victories on the Tour, having joined Belgian Philippe Thys, American Greg LeMond and France’s Louison Bobet as triple winners.
In 2012, Froome finished third behind fellow Briton Bradley Wiggins and German Tony Martin, and his time trial performances on the Tour – second and first – suggest he could be a contender on Aug.10.
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“I took bronze in London in the last Olympics and it would be incredible to win a medal again this year”, he said, referring to the time trial.
