FROOME WOULD NOT BE BEATEN
Slurs, abuse and illness . . . but he won it
THE voices in Chris Froome’s head were telling him to climb off his bike, telling him it was no longer worth the suffering, that there were better things he could be doing with his life.
Before the Tour de France he had spoken of visualising the climbs and imagining himself riding away from his rivals.
Now on the Col de la Croix de Fer, some 60 kilometres from the finish of the final mountain stage with Alpe d’Huez still to come, he was at breaking point.
He was not only unable to keep up with Nairo Quintana, his great Colombian rival intent on erasing the 158-second advantage the Briton had taken into the decisive 20th stage, but uncertain he could even reach the 2,000-metre summit.
What Froome did not reveal until after enjoying his first beer since Christmas in Alpe d’Huez on Saturday night was just how unwell he had been since the second rest day.
Keen not to make excuses in his post-race interviews after being beaten by Quintana to a second mountain-top finish in as many days, he had dismissed questions about his health by saying he had nothing more than a tight chest.
But in the team hotel a couple of hours later, the truth emerged.
He had been struggling with a chest infection serious enough to convince his boss, Sir Dave Brailsford, that an historic second Tour victory for the British rider might disappear on the last brutal stage in the Alps. Brailsford was so concerned he said he was unable to sleep the night before. ‘ It was horrific,’ he admitted.
Brailsford’s worst nightmare very nearly materialised. ‘ There were points, especially going up that first climb, where I was just thinking: “I don’t know how long I can hang on here”,’ said Froome.
‘It was when Quintana and Valverde had got that little gap. That was quite a pivotal moment of the race. If Richie Porte hadn’t got me close enough for me to be able to jump across like that, if I’d tried to jump across on my own and they had accelerated and left me in noman’s land, that could have been the Tour. That could have been the leader’s jersey gone. There were definitely some moments where it was touch and go.’ It became a battle of will. ‘There are all kinds of things going through your mind which are telling you: “Hold on, this isn’t worth it. You can’t push yourself this hard any l onger. It’s not physically possible”. Then you have the counter-argument with yourself, saying “Come on, you’ve got this far already, you can do it a bit longer”.
‘It’s forever this argument you’re having with yourself in your head, how much deeper you can go, how much suffering you can take. All of us deal with it in different ways. That’s why people talk about cycling being as much mental as it is physical.’
Come that final ascent of Alpe d’Huez, it was all too much for Brailsford. The sight of Quintana accelerating clear. The sight of Froome toiling as the road spiralled ever steeper towards the summit.
Froome was having to tell his two team-mates, Wouter Poels and Richie Porte, to slow down because he was struggling so much.
After the months of meticulous planning, after even using Google Earth to work out which vehicle would go where in the car park of every hotel they stayed at on their journey, Brailsford began to wonder if a pesky bug was about to ruin it all on that last 13.8km climb.
‘I couldn’t watch it,’ said Brailsford. ‘I was behind all the TV lorries and everything. I kept looking over at the screen. We didn’t have a team bus because that had gone to Paris. So I couldn’t go and do what I normally do. I watched the screen and then thought: “I can’t watch it”.
‘The logical part of my brain was going: “Figure it out, how much is he going to have to lose per kilometre?” I could work out the percentage drop- off in power he would need to lose the time. I was telling myself:lf “Th That’st’ nott goingi t to happen”. But still I couldn’t watch it.
‘He’s had quite a serious chest infection but he’s coped with it admirably. He’s battled on, not complained once about it, stayed positive. It’s as much a mental battle he’s won as a physical one. Credit to him. Mentally he’s a very, very robust individual.’
He is indeed, possessing a quality that cannot be measured by a power meter and scrutinised by the scientists who suggest that not all his numbers add up — creating a cloud of suspicion over Froome without any evidence that he has ever doped.
When he had to dig deep to limit the damage Quintana was able to inflict on that final climb, he found something extra. Quintana beat him by 80 seconds but it was not enough. The yellow jersey remained in Froome’s possession for yesterday’s champagne-fuelled roll into rain-soaked Paris.
It has been an especially hard Tour for Froome.
As well as the sheer physical challenge of beating the world’s best bike riders, he has had to contend with the thinly-veiled accusations of doping and the abuse on the roadside.
That he has overcome such adversity to win a second Tour, even refusing to let illness beat him in the end, is perhaps a more accurate measure of the man than the performances he produced on the ascents of Mur de Huy and La Pierre-Saint-Martin.
Froome is a gutsy rider in a gutsy team.
Much is being made of the 88 seconds Quintana lost after being caught behind a crash on the second stage. But that is bike racing and what is too easily overlooked is the fact that Sky made a point of keeping Froome near the front to avoid such setbacks.
It is hard work doing that but in the end the hard work has paid off — so much so that Froome even
finished as King of the Mountains.
‘Quintana probably came into this race a little bit undercooked,’ said Brailsford. ‘He should have come in a little bit fitter and taken it on earlier. He waited so much for the final week that he missed his chance. He missed the train waiting on the station.’
After the urine-throwing and spitting he endured, Froome thinks he had beer thrown at him on the Alpe. ‘Maybe that was my first drink since Christmas,’ he said.
This Christmas, surely, the British public will demonstrate their appreciation for a fine champion.
It i s perhaps because of his upbringing in Africa that he finished sixth in the 2013 poll for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Maybe this year, after winning a second Tour, it will be different.
‘I guess this is definitely when your true personality comes out, when you are put under pressure, when you are tested in these kind of situations,’ he said.
Brailsford suggested Team Sky are more concerned wi t h performance t han popularity contests.
‘But Chris deserves the recognition that he is one of the best s portsmen Britain has ever produced,’ he said. ‘If people decide to vote for him for Sports Personality, it’s up to them.’