Froome exits Team Inoes

SEVEN-TIME Grand Tour winner Chris Froome will leave Team Ineos for Israel Start-Up Nation at the end of the season to bring an end to a decade-long association with Sir Dave Brailsford’s team.

The four-time Tour de France winner has agreed to join the Israel Start-Up Nation squad on an undisclosed deal which his new team said would see Froome “wear ISN’s blue and white until the end of his illustrious career”.

“I’m really excited to be joining the ISN family,” Froome said. “I look forward to challenging and being challenged by their talent and continuing to strive for the success that I’ve enjoyed up to now.”

Froome’s new team have promised the 35-year-old leadership in the Tour, something he could no longer be sure of at Ineos in the wake of his devastating crash last summer and the emergence of both Geraint Thomas and the 23-year-old Egan Bernal, who have won the past two editions of the Tour between them.

“It has been a phenomenal decade with the team, we have achieved so much together and I will always treasure the memories,” Froome said.

“I look forward to exciting new challenges as I move into the next phase of my career but in the meantime my focus is on winning a fifth Tour de France with Team Ineos.”

No final team selection has yet been made for the Tour, though Froome remains on course to start. He is currently on a training camp in Mallorca, and is due to ride in three stage races - La Route d’Occitanie, Tour de l’Ain, and the Dauphine next month before the Tour begins in Nice on August 29.

With Thomas and Bernal also due to be in the Tour line-up, there should be a fascinating battle for dominance within the team that has won seven out of the past eight Tours.