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Chris Froome awarded Velo d'Or Rider of the Year

Second British rider in a row to be recognised by cycling journalists poll

Tour de France winner Chris Froome has been voted Velo d’Or Rider of the Year in an annual poll of cycling journalists run by France’s Velo magazine.

It’s the second year in a row that a British rider has been named to the prestigious title, after Sir Bradley Wiggins topped the poll last year.

On teamsky.com, Froome said: "To win an award as significant as this is a fantastic way to cap an incredible season. I was fortunate enough to win the International Flandrien trophy a few weeks ago and to win this one as well is really satisfying.

"I'd like to thank all the people who voted for me, and while it's nice to be recognised for my achievements, my team-mates deserve credit as well because I couldn't have achieved what I've achieved this year without them."

Froome’s Tour de France victory was preceded by wins in four other stage races: Tour of Oman, Criterium International, Tour de Romandie and Criterium du Dauphine.

Giro d’Italia winner Vincenzo Nibali took second place in the poll and sprinter Peter Sagan was third.

The Velo d’Or Espoirs award for best young rider went to Nairo Quintana and Christophe Riblon was named best French rider for his victory on Alpe d’Huez during the Tour.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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12 comments

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ragtimecyclist | 11 years ago
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Does anyone remember when the thought of a Brit being successful on the road was laughable...great innit'

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antipathes | 11 years ago
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Where is cancellara from the top 3??!!  105

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samyarwood | 11 years ago
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Warren Barguil should have got best French.

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Flying Heron | 11 years ago
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Looking forwards to 2014. Think its gonna be 2 on the trot for froome despite the lack of TT's.

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Flying Heron | 11 years ago
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Looking forwards to 2014. Think its gonna be 2 on the trot for froome despite the lack of TT's.

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Karbon Kev | 11 years ago
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Much more deserved than that knighthood bloke imo ...

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sneakerfrfeak replied to Karbon Kev | 11 years ago
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How so?

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McTag replied to Karbon Kev | 11 years ago
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If you compare Wiggins' 2012 season and Froome's 2013 season it's hard to say 'much more deserved' based on results, really. Both were dominant, both deserved it.

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ragtimecyclist replied to Karbon Kev | 11 years ago
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Karbon Kev wrote:

Much more deserved than that knighthood bloke imo ...

...so I suppose my point is, it doesn't matter if it was more deserved than the knighthood bloke...it's just different, and it's all good.

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James Warrener | 11 years ago
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Wholly predictable, but thoroughly deserved.

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jarredscycling | 11 years ago
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Not quite sure how Sagan was able to overtake Cancellara given that he beat Sagan on more than a few occasions and won Paris-Roubaix

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sm replied to jarredscycling | 11 years ago
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jarredscycling wrote:

Not quite sure how Sagan was able to overtake Cancellara given that he beat Sagan on more than a few occasions and won Paris-Roubaix

Sagan has the highest win rate in the peloton (I think), something like 25% of stages for all races entered. 1 in 4 - wow. Cav is it about 19% as per this excellent inrng article

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