Team Sky rider Chris Froome won the famed Tour de France title for a third time on Sunday when he crossed the finish line of the 21-stage race in Paris.
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Thomas finished 15th overall and after winning Gold in the velodrome at London 2012 will race with Froome, Yates, and Cummings in the Olympic Road Race at Rio2016.
The Team Sky rider survived two crashes and even a jog up a mountain road to add to his 2013 and 2015 triumphs to become the first rider to retain his title since Miguel Indurain in 1995.
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.
Britain’s Chris Froome, wearing the overall leader’s yellow jersey, and the pack pass the Arc de Triomphe during the twenty-first stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 113 kilometers (70.2 miles) with start in Chantilly and finish in Paris, France, Sunday, July 24, 2016.
In a way it has been unlike any other Tour; this year there was certainly some iconic sights, most notably Froome running up Mont Ventoux in just his cleats, and then Adam Yates was on the wrong end of the flame rouge collapsing, but at the end of the day that’s the way the Tour is, it ebbs and flows.
Chris Froome has said that his yellow jersey in the 103rd Tour De France was for his son Kellan.
German Greipel, also the victor in Paris 12 months ago, pipped the late-charging world champion Peter Sagan to the line in the traditional sprint after racing clear of Norway’s Alexander Kristoff on the run-in. “Vive le Tour et vive la France!”
Having finished just over a minute ahead of Quintana last year, 31-year-old Froome was expected to face his toughest challenge yet as the course was meant to favour the 26-year-old Colombian.
Froome is now turning his attention to winning the Olympic Games time trial in Rio on August 10. “I’ve done absolutely everything I can to win this race, on flats, descents, time trials, I’ve done everything I can”. The fact that the three-time victor of the Tour de France views this race as the ideal preparation for his bid for Olympic gold shows the calibre of the race we have developed in just three years.
Speaking alongside Brailsford and team-mate Geraint Thomas, Froome said: ‘I’ve had to put up with these two laughing at me for the last two weeks.
Ever since taking time from his rivals on an audacious downhill attack on stage eight, before riding the windy 11th stage better than the rest to further extend his advantage, Froome and his Team Sky were in control. “I imagine it will give him a lot of motivation to come back next year and fight for victory”. “Even though we didn’t win the team GC, if you look at GC we’ve got four guys in the top 20 and that speaks for itself”.
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“If anything it shows my will to win, how badly I wanted it”, he said.
