Froome attacked ‘because he’s not French’
FRENCH cycling fans have turned on Tour de France leader Chris Froome because they are “bitter” that no homegrown rider has won the race for almost 30 years, Sir David Brailsford has suggested.
Barring accident or act of God, Froome, 30, should ride down the Champs-Elysées in Paris tomorrow wearing the yellow jersey, becoming the first Briton to win cycling’s most famous race twice. With a lead of more than two and a half minutes over the chasing pack, Froome should know by tonight whether he has completed the job, as the final stage tomorrow is traditionally non-competitive.
Not everyone, however, will be cheering him to the finish line, as a section of French cycling fans and journalists have accused him of cheating. He was spat at yesterday, has been called a cheat by people in the crowds and even had urine thrown at him.
Sir David, the architect of Team GB’s cycling gold rush at the 2012 Olympics and principal of Team Sky, has suggested that jealousy is at the root of the abuse Froome has been getting.
He said: “There is a minority of French people who are a bit bitter at the length of time that they haven’t won the Tour for, and they take that out on whoever is wearing the yellow jersey, but I must say that the majority of the French public have been absolutely fantastic.”
Froome, who won the race in 2013 following Sir Bradley Wiggins’s first British win in 2012, has been accused of taking drugs and even of having an electric motor hidden in his bike.
Sir David told the BBC that any Tour winner now had to accept that the long shadow cast by former winner Lance Armstrong’s admission of cheating would fall on them. “Given the past of the sport there are still some questions asked when people see superb per- formances,” he said. “We would prefer not to have that small minority but it’s not going to distract us at all from the job in hand.”
He said the anti-Froome lobby had been stoked by French journalists using “pseudo sports scientists” to look at videos of the rider and estimate his power output. Earlier this week he released the actual data to prove those estimates wrong. Even then, some people are not satisfied.
Yet no former Olympic or Team Sky rider has made any allegations against Sir David and his team “because we’re not doing anything [wrong]”, he said. “When a team is successful and continues to be successful it’s always going to draw some different reactions, but we are disciplined and we work very hard and some other people are trying to catch up,” he added.
Froome’s wife, Michelle, also defended him. She told Laurent Jalabert, the retired French rider who was accused of insinuating that Froome was doping, that he was an “ignorant, irresponsible fool”.
Sport: Pages 2-3