SPAIN IS NEXT ON ROAD TO GLORY...
Froome plans to add the Vuelta to his four Tour de France wins
Every year we must adapt to what the Tour throws at us
NOT everything went smoothly for Chris Froome yesterday. He did manage to help a fan propose to his girlfriend, but there was the brief embarrassment of dropping his speech on the podium under the Arc de Triomphe. Rigoberto Uran recovered the pages, the Colombian for once proving quicker than his rival.
In pretty much every other respect, however, Froome has hardly put a foot wrong and after rolling into Paris to secure a fourth Tour de France title the world’s leading Grand Tour rider shifted his focus to the second part of his grand plan for this year.
Froome claims not to be a great student of his sport. In Marseille on Saturday night he admitted to not being terribly knowledgeable about the achievements of riders like Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault.
But he said he was honoured to be mentioned in the same sentence as the Tour greats and next month in Spain he will bid to stand among them.
Only Anquetil and Hinault have won the Tour and the Vuelta a Espana in the same season and that was before the Spanish race was moved from the spring to late summer.
Froome will attempt to join them by becoming the first rider to complete the double in the modern era, and he appears confident after finishing as runner-up in Madrid last year.
This Tour went pretty much to script even if the Team Sky rider did crack on one particularly steep finish in the Pyrenees because he had failed to fuel properly. He came into the Tour relatively race light with the intention of getting stronger as the race progressed, not only ensuring a powerful display in the Alps and the concluding time trial but making it easier to remain at that peak for another three-week race that commences in Nimes on August 19.
‘It’s always been the plan to go on to the Vuelta,’ said Froome. ‘I’ll have to see how I shape up over the next 10 days and when I get back into training.
‘But the goal was to be strong in the third week of the Tour, and especially after a couple of hard days in the Alps it’s worked out really well.
‘Tim Kerrison (his coach) has been a major part of that and I have him to thank for the planning and coming into the Tour the way I did. I’ve never felt this good in the third week of a Grand Tour. Even though I was pushing to the limits, I always felt as if I was in control.’
That control, that success in winning a race that the organisers had endeavoured to make more difficult for the defending cham‘ We pion by limiting both the time trial kilometres and the mountain top finishes, is ominous for Froome’s rivals. And not just because he still managed to secure a fourth title by smashing the other general classification contenders on a TT bike.
It also convinces Froome, and Kerrison for that matter, that they can continue to dominate the world’s biggest bike race because of his versatility.
Indeed it has made Froome think he can continue to compete for the maillot jaune for many more years to come, raising the intriguing possibility of not just matching Anquetil, Hinault, Eddie Merckx and Miguel Indurain in winning a fifth Tour but surpassing their achievements.
‘I’d like to keep racing into my late thirties and keep competing for the yellow jersey,’ said the 32-year-old. ‘I’d like to be here for the next five years, trying to win it, even though it doesn’t get any easier.’
Quite how they make the course more Froome-proof remains to be seen but you sense, listening to Kerrison, that they will struggle.
knew it was going to be a close race, not just the rider who was strongest but who made the least mistakes,’ said Kerrison.
‘Being strong in the third week has always been a priority for us. We made sure Chris came in very well-conditioned but fresh as well. It’s about what you do in the days and weeks leading in, not chasing form.
‘The great thing now is that he’s shown he can win it different ways. It’s not always the strongest time trial rider or strongest climber. It’s the strongest all-round rider and you have to adapt to how the race changes over the years.
‘He can perform in a Tour that has 100km of time trial (2012) and a Tour that has less than 40km, or cross winds, cobbles, climbs, steep punchy finishes.
‘We need to adapt his condition to the demands of the race. That’s one of the challenges for us. Hopefully we can keep going at this level for another couple of years.’
Froome’s only concern should be the controversy that continues to surround Team Sky.
‘When you have a three-week bike race, especially one that’s been this close, it’s not something that’s on you radar,’ said Froome. ‘It’s just noise in the background. It’s the same as a Frenchman going ‘boo’ at the roadside — you hear it, but it doesn’t stop you pedalling or going in the direction you need to go.’
It may not involve him directly but Froome needs to be mindful of the fact that he cannot sever all connections when he has chosen to remain Sky’s principal rider by signing a new contract, just as he needs to be aware that his explanation for not giving a press conference as the race leader on the second rest day was not well received either.
A number of cycling writers from across Europe were distinctly unimpressed when he told them that if they were the primary concern it would be called ‘a media day’ rather than ‘a rest day’.
Technically, he’s right, of course, but with greatness comes responsibility and Froome might just want to remember this before moving on to the next challenge.