FROOME AND TEAM SKY CALLED INTO QUESTION

CHRIS FROOME and his team at Sky have had their ethics questioned by one of the leading anti-doping advocates in cycling on the eve of the Tour de France Grand Depart in Yorkshire today. Christophe Basson, a former rider and key adversary of Lance Armstrong, has said their use of TUEs (therapeutic use exemption certificate) is no different to using the blood-boosting drug EPO. Speaking in Leeds yesterday to promote his updated autobiography — ‘A Clean Break’ — Basson said it was wrong for Froome (pictured) to race in April’s Tour de Romandie using a TUE for asthma medication. Froome was not in breach of any regulations but Basson said: ‘The fact is Froome has shown his mentality by taking this product. He had a problem, he was ill and he took this product. It’s not that different from taking EPO because you’re tired and your haematocrit is low. ‘Just because it’s legal, it comes down to the same mentality. ‘There seems to be this obligation with Sky to perform at any cost.’ Bassons said he could see unfavourable comparisons between Sky and the US Postal Service team that dominated under the leadership of Armstrong. He also said it was wrong that a former doper, Bjarne Riis, was the team manager of the Tinkoff Saxo team. ‘It’s not acceptable that people like Riis are still in the sport when we are trying to restore the credibility of cycling,’ he said. Yorkshire has taken the Tour to its heart this weekend but however exciting it promises to be, the Tour is never simply about the racing. Froome and his contemporaries wish their sport could move on from its troubled, drug-stained past. But when that troubled past is riding alongside Froome, in the form of his main rival, it proves impossible. Like any athlete who has served his punishment for doping, Alberto Contador is perfectly entitled to compete, but were the Spaniard to win, it would feel uncomfortable. Froome acknowledges that beating riders such as Contador invites the same questions that were raised when he rode away from the field on Mont Ventoux last year. ‘It’s a good thing that we put all of our cards on the table and we tell people how it is now,’ he said. ‘The only way we’re going to move on from it is to accept what has happened. ‘Get it all out there. And then move on.’