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news
chris_froome_in_rome_picture_lapresse.jpg“No question” over validity of Giro d’Italia win, insists Chris Froome
Chris Froome insists there is “no question” over the validity of his victory in the Giro d’Italia, which finished in Rome yesterday.
The Team Sky rider, who moved into the overall lead with a stunning solo ride from 80 kilometres out on Friday Stage 19, is the first British rider to win the Italian race.
He also becomes the seventh rider in history to have won all three of cycling’s Grand Tours and only the third, after Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault, to have been champion of each of them at the same time.
The fact that the case relating to his adverse analytical finding for salbutamol at last year’s Vuelta is still unresolved casts a shadow over his Giro d’Italia victory, although Froome is confident he will clear his name.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live today, the 33-year-old was adamant that there would be no room for doubt over the validity of his latest victory, achieved by a margin of 46 seconds over last year’s winner, Tom Dumoulin of Team Sunweb.
“There should be no question at all about the validity of the results here,” the Team Sky rider said.
"I am being tested absolutely every day - before the race and after the race.
"I know from my side, I've done absolutely nothing wrong and it's only a matter of time until that is clear to everybody.
"It's unfortunate for the sport and its image, but hopefully we'll get this result as soon as possible.
“For everyone, that would be the best thing possible. We're in the middle of that process right now."
With four Tour de France titles and his Vuelta victory last year, Froome has now won six Grand Tours and says that the past three weeks have provided the toughest test of those races.
"It's so much more unpredictable," he said of the Giro d’Italia.
"It's a lot more explosive and, with the risk involved in terms of crashing and missing the right move at the right moment, I think this is the most tricky of the three Grand Tours that we have on our calendar.
"This was the hardest victory for me."
Froome began Friday’s Stage 19, the toughest of the race, in fourth place overall, 3 minutes 22 seconds behind race leader Simon Yates of Mitchelton-Scott.
But with the latter dropped as Froome launched his attack, the Team Sky man finished the day with a lead of 40 seconds over Dumoulin, while Yates, dropped early on the climb of the Colle delle Finestre, lost more than 15 minutes to fall out of contention.
Froome said: "Simon rode an incredible race. Obviously he's a rival of mine and I was trying to beat him, but for two and a half weeks he was on top form and was amazing.”
He added: "I've got no doubt he will win one of these big races one day."
Now, Froome is taking a short break before starting his preparations for the Tour de France, where he is seeking a record-equalling fifth victory and would also be the first man since the late Marco Pantani to win the Giro and Tour in the same year.
"I'm going to take two or three days off to relax with my family, but then it's straight back into training,” he said.
"It's six weeks to the start of the Tour de France, so that's the big goal now. I want to be in the best shape possible for the start in July."
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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10 comments
Yeah. What he said.
So if Froome gets punished will they take anything Vuelta and onward away?
My understanding is that due to the nature of the infraction, he will lose his Vuelta result only.
This is based on the premise that Salbutamol is not recognised as performance enhancing and its control is about managing athlete health. Froome if found guilty, risked his health by overdosing on the drug, and therefore will be stripped of the relevant title and banned accordingly.
His other results will not be seen to be achieved with the benefit of doping and are therefore vaild.
Not sure how I feel about that if I am honest.
What I am sure of is that Froome should not be racing with this hanging over his head. Aligned to this, the delay in process is reaching farcical levels. I would love to know where the delay is being generated. I would say that its in Sky's interest to time this out until after the Tour however.
Bag the tour title, then accept a six month sanction (at a time when he would be long overdue an extended rest) and we all start again next march. Boom no harm done!
As for Sky and Froome in general. There is a stink of USPS about this. By that I mean that the 'lie' is now so seemingly big, that its very size is the one thing giving it credibility.
Would Sky make these huge, bold claims if they were really implementing a strucutred doping programme?
Looking at Frooms performance post last rest day, him and his team rode exactly as though they'd had a blood transfusion on the day off... like the good old days.
I can't believe they'd be doing this and all the while talking shit like they do. It really is starting to look like a repeat of the greatest doping scandal the world has seen.
Or they are not doing anything... and they are indeed being wrongly castigated. Whilst there are indeed similarities, there are some big differences too. No Ferrari, no high profile ex teammates getting popped.
Tell that to the UCI and WADA.
You mean the time trial - the one where Dumoulin and 4 other riders were faster than Froome?
Or are you mentioning it because De La Cruz and Kiryienka were 9th & 10th (having untypically not had to lead the peloton for a week or more). The next Sky rider was Poels, over 2 minutes down.
How is that
proofindicative of blood transfusions?Meanwhile no lingering noise about Aru's performance that day - 8th. Before that uncharacteristically stellar TT performance he was already 25 minutes behind Yates overall and threw in the towel a few days later. And without that I can tell you that a bloke who doesn't time trial well cannot leap that far up the results solely by drafting over a rolling 34 km course with a tailwind.
Nobody doubted Nieve's solo win on stage 20 after spending much of the previous 3 weeks working for Yates.
What about stage winner Chaves' sudden evaporation of form? At least the team didn't claim it was food poisoning, as PDM once did.
I'll quote you a comment from an article I read earlier (and no, not Philippa York's disappointing diatribe):
"They say the quality of your win lies in who you beat, and Froome didn’t exactly slay a decade’s worth of top rivals with his now-famous ride on Friday."
Pinot contracted pneumonia; Yates burned his matches in the first two weeks; Lopez & Carapaz are young guns with no serious GT history; 5th, 6th and 7th places were filled by Pozzovivo, Bilbao and Konrad. 8th was George Bennett while Sunweb's Sam Oomen, supposedly a mountain domestique for Dumoulin, was 9th.
US Postal mk II? Really?
Simon,
Stop talking sense. Stop not sounding like a gnarly arsehole who thinks he knows it all. Stop not throwing down your opinion as if it were cast iron facts when it actually bares no resemblance to reality.
It will never catch on around here.
Sadly, in future books of cycling history, this will always come with an asterisk. Whether that asterisk points to a footnote that says, "but he was stripped of his Vuelta jersey", or "all but his TDF victories were voided", or just "however, these were won while part of the widely discredited Sky team" depends on the outcome of pending hearings.
Pity, because he seems a nice-enough fellow on the surface.
Yes a real shame - why are people not putting an asterix against victories of Merckx and Hinault, mentioned here, who both had their brush with the drugs testers? Are they, and / or their teams not discredited too?
Indeed - I guess there are plenty of new fans to cycling who think the doping is new; here's my 'doping in cycling' overview timeline; http://bikeby.bike/bikes/cycling-drugs-timeline/
“There should be no question at all about the validity of the results here,”
No, there should be questions. Why on earth shouldnt there be questions? The last few riders who've had results like this have also said how clean they were, only to be found out. The cycling public has been conned time after time, and now we shouldnt even question?
Innocent or guilty, this is the same speed we've all heard before.
Most tested athlete in the world?