Knee injury setback for Chris Froome ahead of new season

Chris Froome has revealed that a knee injury, which he says was due to overtraining, means he will have to delay the start of his 2022 season.

The four-time Tour de France winner broke the news in a video posted to his YouTube channel.

Froome, who joined Israel Start-Up Nation last year after a decade with Team Sky (now Ineos Grenadiers) said that he had damaged a tendon in his knee.

“I’ve just got back from doing some scans at the hospital,” the 36 year old said.

“For the last 10 days or so I’ve been getting quite a bit of pain on the outside of my knee while I’m pedalling.

“Unfortunately, I think just getting back into training these past couple of weeks I might have been a little bit too keen, pushing a little bit too much.

“This was after a few weeks off the bike and maybe the body wasn’t ready to push that hard. It’s flared up and caused a bit of inflammation.

“What it means is I’m going to have to take the best part of a week off the bike before starting very gradually.

“It’s definitely a setback for me,” Froome added. “I’m not too sure where I’m going to start the racing year and it’s going to push everything back slightly.”

Froome last raced in Italy in early October to bring an end to what was a disappointing first year with Israel Start-Up Nation which underlined that he is still yet to fully recover from his near career-ending crash at the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2019.

His best overall result last year was   23rd at the Tour of Slovakia, while he finished 133rd on general classification at the Tour de France.

His first race next season was due to have be the Vuelta a San Juan in Argentina which starts on 30 January, followed by the Tour du Rwanda in late February.