FROOME BOOED
Furious French turn on four-time winner ...before Tour starts!
CHrIS FROOME was booed and jeered by the crowd at the Tour de France’s team presentation event last night. It was the first time Froome had appeared in public since cycling’s world governing body the UCI cleared him of any wrongdoing this week following a doping investigation.
And the reception for him and Team Sky was ugly. Seasoned cycling observers described it as the worst and most unpleasant greeting for a team in living memory. Many spectators gave the defending champion, 33, the thumbs-down gesture (right) when he was interviewed on stage.
On Wednesday night, Froome had urged fans not to bring ‘negativity’ to the race, which starts tomorrow. But such a display of hostility before the 21-day Tour has even begun suggests that Team Sky, and specifically Froome, will encounter a lot of public vitriol over the coming few weeks.
Of course, it is not only spectators who are out to get Froome. His race rivals stepped up their mind games in a bid to undermine him ahead of the start tomorrow. While no riders have voiced any irritation with the UCI’s decision to clear the Briton over the nine-month doping case hanging over him, it is clear some hope the pre-race favourite is not in his best shape.
richie Porte, Froome’s former teammate turned rival, did not hold back when saying he hopes the 33-year-old is ‘b ****** d’ and ‘tired’ after his podium-topping efforts at the Giro d’Italia in May. Australian Porte, who helped Froome to success at the Tour in 2013 and 2015, will be vying for his first yellow jersey with BMC racing. And his rivalry with the Brit was made clear when he said: ‘It was nice to watch him in the Giro, I hope he’s b ****** d, which he might be.’ Although no one has completed the Giro-Tour double since Marco Pantani in 1998, Porte thinks Froome is arguably the only current rider that would be able to do it. He said: ‘The thing with Chris is that he has gone to the Giro with a super strong team and he’s come here to the Tour with an arguably stronger team. ‘I think if anyone is going to be able to do it, it is perhaps him. He has won his last four grand tours. I know that team, I rode there for years, he is obviously here with the goal of winning it and he has probably done the right work to do that. But like I said before, I hope that he is tired. I think guys like Vincenzo (Nibali) and Nairo (Quintana) they are never going to give you an easy day. So that could also happen out on the road. If he does have a bad day then there are quite a few guys ready to end his winning streak.’
Porte also described the data Sky released from Froome’s Giro win as ‘fake news’, adding: ‘Maybe they put it out there hoping people will under-fuel’.
Pressed on whether he had an opinion on Froome being cleared of any wrongdoing involving a sample he gave at last year’s Vuelta a Espana which exceeded the permitted level for the asthma drug salbutamol, he said: ‘I guess he has been cleared. It was never really for us. It’s above us. It doesn’t really matter our opinion. It is a shame that cycling has its dirty laundry in the public. It would have helped if it had been in private.’