PLUS: FROOME SET FOR GLORY
Briton set for Paris victory lap despite French boos
CHRIS FROOME should probably take comfort in the fact that the sight of yellow is often accompanied by boos and whistles inside a football stadium.
This was a different sport, of course. A different crowd too in what was a curiously half-empty Stade Velodrome (an issue with ticket allocations apparently). And it was the identity of the rider wearing the maillot jaune, rather than the skinsuit itself, that a partisan crowd was clearly taking issue with when he set off in pursuit of the French favourite and secondplaced rider, Romain Bardet.
Froome was showered with abuse as he rolled off the starting ramp and accelerated towards the streets of Marseilles and not even the fact that he returned almost in tandem with Bardet some 28 minutes later saved him from yet more stick.
Never mind that Bardet had just squeezed home so dramatically in a podium position, ahead of Team Sky’s Mikel Landa, with just a second to spare. The sight of Froome sparked more jeers, and not for the first time in this year’s race against the backdrop of controversy and suspicion that now accompanies Team Sky on the road.
In fairness to the hosts, it had the feel of a pantomime and there was a more dignified response to the moment when a smiling Froome triumphantly pulled on the yellow jersey to mark what will be his fourth Tour de France title in five years when he rolls into Paris today.
They probably did appreciate his efforts over the last three weeks and the quality of the performance he delivered over 22.5km yesterday when he was under immense pressure given how narrow an advantage he held over Bardet and Rigoberto Uran of Colombia.
In the end it was Uran who faltered, not just by failing to threaten Froome’s lead — he would finish 25 seconds slower to take his overall deficit to almost a minute — but by crashing into an advertising hoarding on the tricky approach to the stadium.
Froome once crashed moments after rolling off the starting ramp in a time trial but he has made significant progress since then, with this particular display a demonstration not just of his athletic prowess but of the preparation that goes into executing these races against the clock.
Last year’s victory in the mountain time trial was something Froome and Team Sky had spent six months planning, taking what appeared a risky decision to ride a TT rather than a road bike when most riders opted for the latter because they are more suited to climbing.
Sky actually modified Froome’s TT bike so he could tackle the steeper gradients effectively, and then worked out that the 30 seconds of time he would still lose on the climbs of the 11-mile course would be outweighed by the 60 seconds he would gain by using the more aerodynamic machine elsewhere.
On this occasion it was the assistance of his team-mates, so dominant in this year’s Tour, that proved important. Michal Kwiatkowski was sent out to essentially perform a dummy run on a route that included a punishing 1.2km climb and provide feedback on both the course and the conditions.
It was startling how similar the two riders were. Froome was two seconds down on Kwiatkowski at the first checkpoint, and just three at the second before finishing only five seconds slower than the Pole and a further second adrift of the stage winner, Maciej Bodnar. Had Froome been wearing the Sky skinsuit that caused such a stir at the start of the Tour — while Kwiatkowski benefited from the special dimpled design, Froome had to wear the standard one provided by the race organisers — he might have beaten both of them.
In terms of the general classification, the damage was nevertheless inflicted on his rivals, much as it was in the opening time trial in Dusseldorf. Bardet and Uran were unable to break Froome in the mountains and his superiority as a time-trial rider proved decisive, even if he has now become only the seventh rider to win the Tour without taking a single stage victory.
Froome insisted it did not concern him. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Given the course we had this year (the shortage of mountain finishes and fewer time trial kilometres) it was always the tactic to ride a three-week race rather than try to blow the race apart on one stage. It was very much a Grand Tour this year.’
He is, of course, now just one title short of a legendary quartet: the four men who stand above all others with five Tour wins. ‘It’s obviously a huge honour to even be mentioned in the same sentence as the greats of Tour de France history like that,’ he said.
‘I’m taking it one race at a time and I still have to get safely to Paris with the other guys. But I never dreamed of even coming close to Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain and after this I have a new-found respect for them, for winning five.’
His one moment of difficulty, when he lost time on a brutally steep finish in the Pyrenees, Froome finally admitted last night was down to his failure to fuel properly on the stage. ‘I was in the red for sure,’ he conceded.
That, however, has already become a distant memory, Froome explaining how sweet a feeling it was to be returning to the Stade Velodrome almost on Bardet’s wheel. ‘I knew I just had to navigate the last two corners and the battle for the Tour was over,’ he said.
And the abuse? ‘It’s perfectly normal with a Frenchman in second place who is just 23 seconds behind me,’ said Froome. ‘We were in Marseilles, in a football stadium — I’m not going to take that personally.’