So, why can’t UK warm to Froome?
NO FANFARE DESPITE HIS HISTORIC DOUBLE
THE scale of Chris Froome’s achievement here in Spain should not be underestimated. As the Team Sky rider said after his commanding ascent of the mighty Alto de L’Angliru on Saturday, there is a reason why no cyclist had ever followed a Tour de France triumph with victory in the Vuelta a Espana a month later.
Spain’s Grand Tour might not enjoy the status of the world’s biggest bike race but the climbs are steeper, more frequent and in many cases more demanding. Some of them are not even proper roads and Froome explained how his coach and mentor had to go in search of ‘goat tracks’ in the Alps in preparation for this race.
But this was not simply about mastering the art of climbing dirt roads better suited to four legs than two wheels. Maintaining form was the greatest challenge facing any Grand Tour rider, and remaining at the peak of their physical powers after something as tough as the Tour.
A measure of just how well Froome did that became apparent on L’Angliru. Romain Bardet was Froome’s equal on the toughest gradients in France, but on Saturday the Frenchman completed the concluding eightmile ascent significantly slower than the Briton. Bardet had put himself in the mix for the stage win, only to cross the line more than a minute down on Froome.
But where, on Saturday night, was the fanfare? Where was the sense of excitement that should perhaps have greeted Froome when he had just done something that should bear comparison with the achievements of any British athlete in history?
Never mind the four Tour wins and a first Vuelta title for a British rider. Froome became only the third cyclist ever to win the Tour and the Vuelta in the same year. The fact he did so by winning the Tour first — the Vuelta moved from spring to summer in 1995 — is unprecedented.
Reflecting on this must have been a surreal experience, with only a few British journalists bothering to get to the mountain-top finish and just five journalists pursuing him for a chat in a local police sports hall once the brutal stage was finished.
Sure, there was a far greater sense of occasion in Madrid last night. But a small town in Asturias was the stage for the real drama and to Froome the interest must have felt minimal. In that sports-hall side room, the conversation did eventually return to the familiar topic of Froome’s popularity in the UK and why he gets so little recognition. Froome claims not to care, and makes light of the perennial question about the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year Award. Did he expect to make the shortlist this year? ‘I am not going to hold my breath,’ he jokingly replied.
BUT consider the size of the task he has conquered. Consider that over six weeks of Grand Tour racing he wore the leader’s jersey for 34 days. ‘It’s been such a hard race, the hardest Grand Tour I’ve ridden,’ he said. ‘Here it felt as if everyone was on that physical limit, on a knife-edge, every day.
‘Given that the Tour and the Vuelta are so close together, it’s very hard to keep your form over that period.
‘That’s why the periodisation of this season, and the way we structured it, was a huge part of why we were able to do this. That’s why I think no one has been able to do it before.’
Climbs such as Alto de los Machucos demanded a more specific training regime. ‘We had some amusing sessions between the Tour and the Vuelta where Tim [Kerrison, Team Sky coach] did find these goat tracks up the side of a mountain and we simulated those days,’ he said.
Impressively Froome ended the race with a bulging suitcase, having taken the green points jersey and the white combined jersey, as well the red leader’s jersey thanks to an 11th-place finish in a final sprint in Madrid won by Matteo Trentin.
But why have his efforts gone under-appreciated? Froome probably thinks the British public will never warm to him in the way they have Bradley Wiggins, because he is Kenyan-born, albeit to an English family. Maybe winning the Tour, when British riders have now worn yellow on the Champs-Elysees for five of the last six years, has been normalised.
One now wonders if Froome really is suffering against the backdrop of suspicion that still accompanies professional road racing and the fact that Team Sky have sustained reputational damage around the Wiggins exemption certificates and medical package controversies.
Sky may believe they have ridden out the worst of the storm. A subject that dominated so many press briefings on the Tour has barely been mentioned in Spain. But damage has been done.
For all Froome’s efforts he is in a team that represents one of cycling’s conflicts.