There’s no rest for Chris Froome (Team Sky) after winning his third Tour de France.
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Froome will tackle the road race alongside Geraint Thomas, Ian Stannard, Adam Yates and Steve Cummings in the British team, with Cummings a late replacement for Peter Kennaugh and a potential wildcard for the team given his talent at attacking from breakaways. “He went a little bit ballistic with all the photographers, but it’s such an incredible feeling”. “It gets a bit unsafe when you start putting a number: five, or six or seven”. “The power I averaged that day, I knew nothing was going to change in 10 days”.
Froome put the hammer down in his bid to retain the Tour title with victory in the 17-kilometre mountain time trial, extending his lead to nearly four minutes. “I have learnt a lot and that’s probably why I’ve been able to race the way I have this year”. The Briton won his first Tour in 2013.
The defining image of the 2016 race will be of Froome striding out on Mont Ventoux on July 14.
It meant he found himself memorably running to the finish line.
With little time to move the barriers and hundreds of thousands of fans compacted onto a shorter stretch of road, it was pandemonium on the mountain as the riders approached.
Another motorbike smashed into Froome from behind, breaking his bike and temporarily seeing him striding up the mountain in his cleats.
“It looks like next weekend I’m going to Ride London on Sunday as a one-day race before we fly as a team to Rio”, he said.
At the start of the stage, Froome dropped back to his Team Sky vehicle to collect bottles of beer and distributed them to each of his eight teammates for a celebratory round. His teammates had yellow stripes on their jerseys and yellow handlebars on their bikes. It was instinctive. That’s what’s inside him, is that winning instinct’.
“I think people have found it hard to relate to me in the past”, Froome said.
‘It’s nice we can laugh about it now, but at the time it was pretty chaotic and pretty stressful.
Froome also plans to ride in the time trial, which could be wide open if Dutchman Tom Dumoulin – who suffered a fracture in his wrist during the Tour – is unable to compete.
The Tour de France is a very tough, steep, global cycling race that’s known as one of the hardest tests of human endurance.
The 31-year-old clinched his third Tour de France victory on Sunday to become the first rider to defend his title since Spain’s Miguel Indurain won the last of his five consecutive crowns in 1995.
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‘If I get any further recognition in the future, obviously I’d welcome it’.
