Toughest test yet
Froome overcame challenges for fourth Tour de France win
PARIS — After the champagne bubbles faded on the Champs-Élysées and Chris Froome drifted away from his Sunday night celebrations to reflect on a fourth Tour de France win, he might have done so with greater fondness for his latest victory than the others.
The first, in 2013, brought the bursting pride of initial success. But he won by more than four minutes, as he did last year. Although Nairo Quintana finished a little more than one minute behind him in 2015, this year’s victory — by just 54 seconds — over another Colombian, Rigoberto Uran, has reason to taste sweeter.
“This Tour has been my toughest yet,” Froome said.
Froome temporarily lost the race lead to daring Italian Fabio Aru in the Pyrenees on a huge climb to the ski station of Peyragudes, then thought he’d lost it altogether two days later. On July 16 in Rodez, he was forced to change his rear wheel in the final 25 miles after a spoke broke, and the British cyclist drifted far behind the main pack.
“I was just standing there on the side of the road with my teammate Michal Kwiatkowski,” Froome said. “I thought it was potentially game over.”
Riding with unchained fury, Kwiatkowski and Froome bridged the gap — and saved his Tour.
Fast-forward to Saturday’s penultimate stage in Marseille and a time trial, one of his strongest disciplines. Froome was right back in the ascendancy and closing in on win No. 4.
Yet the once and future
champion was jeered by fans at the Stade Velodrome football stadium as he began his ride, and more jeers followed along the route as he put time between himself and France’s Romain Bardet, one of his top challengers. Froome had urine thrown over him on a previous Tour, so booing was hardly going to unsettle him.
The Team Sky cyclist was almost chivalrous on the podium Sunday as he celebrated his third straight Tour win, addressing fans in admirable French.
“Thank you for the welcome and your generosity,” Froome said, with unintentional irony. “Your passion for this race makes it really special. I fell in love with this race.”
Bardet was 2 minutes, 20 seconds behind Froome in third place. But he denied Spain’s Mikel Landa — Froome’s teammate — a podium spot by just one second. Aru finished fifth, 3:05 behind.
Some might say Froome did not shine too brightly because he didn’t win a stage, but neither did American Greg Lemond when clinching
his third Tour title in 1990. For Froome, consistency and a dogged ability to respond under pressure were the keys.
So was overcoming fear, notably in tackling speedy downhill sections that once filled him with the equivalent of an actor’s stage fright. This year, Froome zipped downhill with newfound confidence.
“Something I’ve certainly worked on the last few years is my descending,” he said.
As per tradition, competition in the final stage — which covered 64 miles from Montgeron to Paris this year — was reserved for sprinters, serving merely as a procession for the rest. Dutchman Dylan Groenewegen won the 21st stage, edging Germany’s Andre Greipel and Norway’s Edvald Boasson Hagen on Sunday.
The focus was elsewhere. Froome now needs only one more title to match the Tour record of five shared by France’s Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault, Spain’s Miguel Indurain and Belgium’s Eddie Merckx.
“It’s a huge honor,” Froome said, “to be talked about in the same sentence.”