Froom Froom
British rider takes Tour de France
PARIS — Chris Froome of Britain survived two crashes, severe storms, an uphill dash on foot and a daredevil descent to win the Tour de France cycling race for a third time Sunday.
With the victory, Froome, the leader of Team Sky, cemented his status as a cyclist without peer and Sky as cycling’s top team.
Initially a seemingly quixotic project to transform Britain into a cycling power, Sky has won three of the past four Tours. It did not win the best-team competition at the Tour, which is based on aggregate times, but it was able to consistently surround Froome with strong mates, one of the keys to his win, particularly in light of the strong winds the riders faced in southern France.
Following tradition, the final stage, which concluded with nine laps of the Champs-Élysées, was largely ceremonial. The riders swapped congratulations, and Froome and his teammates sipped some Champagne and beer while showing off special race clothing. The host broadcaster took full advantage of its helicopter camera to show off scenic wonders, particularly the 16thcentury chateau and elaborate stables in Chantilly, where the 113-kilometre stage started.
There was no in-race drinking, however, for the sprinters of the Tour and the teams that employed them. André Greipel, a German rider on the Belgian Lotto Soudal team, won what is probably cycling’s most prestigious sprint.
“Thanks for your kindness in these difficult times,” Froome said in French from the Tour’s final podium. “You have the most beautiful race in the world. Vive le Tour. Vive La France.”
This month’s truck attack on Nice did not noticeably thin the crowd that came to see Froome lead the race onto the Champs-Élysées circuit. But security, traditionally high, clearly had been increased. Cafes along the cobbled street were ordered closed on police orders as were some Metro stations. At the subway stops that did remain open, spectators were held back to allow police officers to inspect bags and parcels.
France’s riot police are usually kept in vans and buses on side streets during the Tour’s finale. On Sunday, they were out mingling with the crowd, as were plainclothes officers dressed as cycling fans.
The French, who still pine for another Tour winner, nevertheless had a rider to cheer this time. Romain Bardet, the unusually slim climber, gave them a lastminute stage win and finished second overall, if a substantial four minutes and five seconds behind Froome. The final podium spot went to Nairo Quintana of Colombia, the leader of the Spanish Movistar team, who showed none of the form he used on the second-to-last stage in 2015 to give Froome a scare.
While Froome has won one of sport’s most difficult challenges three times, including in 2013 and ’15, he is more respected than admired. Even in Britain, he has yet to achieve the popularity and celebrity of Bradley Wiggins, the former Sky rider who, in ’12, become the first Briton to win the Tour. Cycling has seen this before. Many fans turned against Eddy Merckx, the great star of the 1970s and now cycling’s living deity, when he seemed to win every race he entered. And while Lance Armstrong at his height was an A-list celebrity in the U.S., Europeans often booed him.
Froome lacks Armstrong’s aggressiveness and Merckx’s rapaciousness. Instead, he is unrelentingly polite but also uncharismatic, less an inspirational speaker than the chief executive of an insurance company addressing shareholders. His remarks, rarely spontaneous, suggest that Froome was a model student at his media-relations training sessions.