Shy champ knows drug slurs will never stop

IT SPEAKS volumes for the nastiness that Chris Froome encountered on his 2,019-mile journey to cycling’s greatest prize that during a rest-day, he seemed happier discussing the forthcoming birth of his first child than the agonies and ecstasies of this year’s Tour de France.

Sitting with his pregnant wife, Michelle, in Team Sky’s mobile kitchen, the cherubfaced athlete who yesterday swept victoriously up the Champs Élysées in Paris declared with a twinkle in his eye that the couple were expecting a boy.

‘I certainly wouldn’t discourage him from cycling, put it that way,’ he added.

“I just think of the amount of joy I’ve had from cycling over the years. It’s a healthy and pure lifestyle, and there are quite a few principles from the sport that you can relate to life in terms of the hard work and ethics.’

Given the hatred and innuendo Froome had endured over recent weeks, it seemed an extraordinarily upbeat way for the 30-year-old British rider to describe his popular, yet troubled profession. After all, such wholesome phrases as ‘hard work and ethics’ are very different to the ones that France’s noisy cycling fans have used to discuss Froome’s dominance of his sport this long, fractious summer.

They cynically take the view, instead, that his winning performance in this ultimate test of physical and mental endurance can be explained by only one thing: cheating.

Traditionally, fans clap rhythmically and shout words of encouragement as the Tour passes. But in recent days, they have jeered and spat at Froome on an almost daily basis, with many leaning into the road to hiss ‘dopeur!’ as he struggles past.

On a long climb towards Mende, a town in the foothills of the southern Alps, just over a week ago, an onlooker marked a new low by throwing a cupful of urine in Froome’s face. His best friend and support rider Richie Porte has been punched by a spectator, while missiles have been thrown at the convoy of vehicles that services the Sky team.

Spectators have even appeared at the roadside wearing surgical masks and white coats, and brandishing syringes.

Threats have also been posted on the internet. Next time, the urine will be acid, Froome has been warned. His wheels will be spiked, causing him to crash. One sick troll was sufficiently brazen to post a personal message vowing to break his legs.

Little wonder, perhaps, that French police assigned six gendarmes to guard the Sky team members when they are not racing.

Froome, who has never failed a drugs test, told me that the threat of attack wasn’t ‘uppermost in my mind’ while he races. But his wife appeared to think otherwise.

Casting a protective gaze towards the man she married quietly on a yacht off Cape Town l ast November, the Welsh- born, South African-raised Michelle interjected: ‘Well, it is certainly at the forefront of mine!’

She added: ‘When people threaten personal harm, and doing terrible things like throwing acid, well, it’s difficult just to ignore that.’

THE ugliness began on stage ten, the first in the mountains, when Froome delivered a breath-taking solo performance to wipe out the opposition on a climb into the Pyrenees.

Shortly afterwards, state- owned French TV channel France 2, gave airtime to a physiologist called Pierre Sallet, who claimed that Froome – who is 6ft 1in and weighs 10st 7lbs – had generated more power than even Lance Armstrong, the legendary American stripped of seven Tour titles after his serial drug use was exposed. Only a doped rider could have achieved this, he suggested.

At a 34-minute press conference a day later, Team Sky released its own figures, which, it claimed, showed the allegation to be ‘wildly wrong’. But by then, the damage was done.

Underlining France’s general antipathy to Froome, even the respected Left-wing newspaper Liberation – France’s equivalent of The Guardian – ran provocative front-page stories linking him with doping.

Perhaps their cynicism had something to do with the fact that no Frenchman has won Le Tour since 1985, making it a national embarrassment that Britons have won three races in the past four years.

It may also have something to do with Froome’s personality. A quiet and unassuming man, whose natural shyness can make him appear cold, he’s never enjoyed public affection on a par with his former celebrity team-mate, Bradley Wiggins.

‘Wiggo’ was given a knighthood after winning the 2012 Tour, before being voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Froome, who has now won two Tours, is still waiting for any comparable accolade.

That shy personality stems from a tricky childhood. Froome was born to wealthy British ex-pats in Nairobi, but the family business hit financial difficulty and at the age of seven, he watched his parents go through an unpleasant divorce. Froome and his mother, Jane, whom he describes as his ‘inspiration’, fell on hard times, lodging in the servant wing of a wealthy white family’s home while Mrs Froome did menial jobs and trained as a physiotherapist.

Froome’s salvation was a battered old pushbike, which he cycled for hours in the countryside around Nairobi, earning pocket-money by delivering fruit for the farmers.

Today, unable to silence the cynics, Froome has resigned himself to ‘ten or 15 more years’ of wounding conjecture. One day, though, he hopes the cynics will admit they ‘got this guy wrong’ and give him the credit he deserves for his heroics in France. For the sake of British cycling, and for his son, who will then be a teenager and perhaps pedalling in his tracks, we must surely hope he’s right.