FROOME FLIER
Brit on brink of history after great ride but poor Yates cracks
CHRIS FROOME produced an astonishing lone attack on a gravel road to roar into the overall lead at the Giro d’Italia yesterday, with a show of power that will go down in cycling folklore.
But it was a disastrous day for fellow Brit Simon Yates, the long-time race leader, as he cracked completely to finish more than 35 minutes off the pace despite starting the day with a 28-second advantage over second- placed Tom Dumoulin.
Team Sky’s Froome attacked with 80 kilometres of the mountainous 181km stage left and won the stage by three minutes.
Froome, who started the day in fourth place in the general classification, three minutes and 22 seconds off the leader’s pink jersey, now leads by 40 seconds from defending champion Dumoulin as they go into today’s final mountain stage before the race finishes tomorrow in Rome.
Froome admitted his decision to force the pace so far out was a huge gamble but the massive effort left his rivals for dead.
He said: ‘I don’t think I’ve ever attacked with 80km to go like that before on my own, and got all the way to the finish. I knew there was a long way to go, but to win this Giro d’Italia I had to do something extraordinary. I couldn’t wait for the last climb, I had to do something crazy. But the team did such a fantastic job to set that up for me.
‘It was going to take something really special to try and first of all get rid of Simon, to get away from Dumoulin and (Domenico) Pozzovivo and to go from fourth to first. I wasn’t going to do that on the last climb alone so I had to try it from a long way back and Colle delle Finestre was the perfect place, a gravel road which reminds me of the roads back in Africa.’
If Kenya-born Froome’s win was one of the most emphatic of his career there were reminders of the controversy generated by his failed drugs test involving an asthma drug at the 2017 Vuelta a Espana. At one point as he struck out alone, Froome, who has spoken openly about his need to control his asthma, was pursued by two spectators dressed as doctors and carrying a giant inhaler.
Froome is bidding to hold all three Grand Tour titles at the same time, following on from his fourth Tour de France crown and La Vuelta win last season — to match the achievements of the great cyclists Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault.
He arrived with big hopes but crashed in training before the race and was injured again in a second crash four days later.
‘It was a very, very tough start for me after the fall,’ Froome said. ‘But I kept up my morale for the finish and I knew that if I did everything right the time to attack would come. That moment came today.’
Yates endured a stage he will wish to forget. The Michelton-Scott rider began to struggle as soon as the riders hit the daunting Colle delle Finestre at the midpoint of the stage, just as the roads turned to gravel — and Froome attacked.