FROOME’S FEARS
NINE months after his career almost ended in a bone-splintering crash into a French garden wall, Chris Froome’s comeback to cycling gets going in the desert setting of the seven-stage UAE Tour tomorrow.
It’s a long way from the dunes of Dubai to the 2020 Tour de France start in Nice but Froome’s hopes of winning a record-equalling fifth Tour will depend on how well he handles this week’s return to racing.
Speaking in Dubai, Froome admitted that there had been times when he had doubted if he’d ever be able to return to racing.
‘Yes, there’s been a lot of tough moments over the last eight months,’ the 34 year old said. ‘This feels like the first day back at school.’
Froome was prepping for a time trial stage of the Criterium du Dauphine race in June last year, when a freak gust of wind caught his bike and caused him to crash at speed into a wall.
He sustained fractures to his femur, hip, elbow ribs and neck, was airlifted to hospital, and underwent a six-hour operation. He spent time in intensive care and then watched from home in Monaco as Colombian team-mate Egan Bernal won last July’s Tour de France.
Since then Froome has focused on his rehabilitation but, with the Tour de France this year starting earlier than usual, in late June, to avoid a clash with the Tokyo Olympics, he is battling to be fit in time.
‘The goal was always to try to start off the season relatively early,’ he said. ‘I think being here (in UAE) is evidence that it’s gone really well, as well as I could have hoped. I’m just happy to be given this second chance of being back in the peloton.’
This year’s Tour de France starts in Nice on June 27 and, if selected, Froome will be vying for leadership duties with 23 year-old Bernal and 2018 Tour winner and Ineos teammate, Geraint Thomas, runnerup to Bernal in Paris last July.
Froome’s return to racing, even in the relative calm of the UAE Tour, will be a stern test of how realistic his hopes of making a successful comeback are.
‘It’s all I’ve thought about for months, being back racing,’ said Froome. ‘The year’s gone incredibly well so far but, having said that, I do still need to manage expectations. It’s going to take me a while to get back to race-winning shape.’
Froome dismissed any suggestion he could win the week-long desert race, saying instead that he’d be happy merely to ‘get through’.
His chances of being selected for the Team Ineos Tour de France line-up remain uncertain.
‘By all accounts, Chris is moving well and on track. If anyone can do it, it would be Chris,’ said Team Ineos sports director Brett Lancaster. ‘You know how determined he is.’
But Lancaster confirmed there would be no room for sentiment, adding: ‘He has to be going well. He’s made it clear he wants to race but it’s still a while off to the Tour.’