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Chris Froome plans on racing RideLondon-Surrey next Sunday

Tour de France champion-in-waiting hasn't raced in UK since 2014...

Chris Froome, who barring mishap will be crowned Tour de France champion for the third time in four years in Paris this afternoon, plans to take part in next Sunday’s RideLondon-Surrey Classic, the first time he’ll have taken part in the race.

The Team Sky rider said yesterday he is likely to take to the start of the fourth edition of the Olympic legacy event.

Froome, who is targeting Olympic gold in the road race and time trial at Rio next month, last raced in the UK when the Tour de France began in Yorkshire in 2014, said:  "I'm looking for recovery after this race," reports Eurosport.

"I think I'll ride RideLondon next Sunday as a one-day race before we fly to Rio, and then we'll be there for a week before [the Olympic road race], to look at the roads and start training again.

"The last few years, I haven't done much racing in the UK,” Froome continued. “Time wise it didn't work out. The Tour of Britain conflicted with the Vuelta, national championships conflicted with my tapering and training for the Tour.

"This seems like the perfect opportunity to go over to London. It will be a massive honour to engage with the British fans, which I haven't been able to do," he added.

In May, a couple of hundred fans were able to get up close and personal with Froome, however, when he tweeted that he was going for a ride in Hampshire, throwing open an invitation for others to join him and expressing surprise afterwards at the numbers who turned up.

> Hundreds turn up for impromptu ride with Chris Froome

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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Al__S | 7 years ago
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If any country should be upset with Froome (and many others) for not paying tax it's France. I know the whole "road tax" thing is as junk in France as it is in the UK- but Monaco based riders spend all their training time taking advantage of well maintained French roads without paying much/any tax in that country.  There's definitely a moral issue there.

 

Froome's page on the BC site.

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the nutcracker | 7 years ago
1 like

BOBBINOGS i'm sure he does pay his annual british racing licence fee like everyone else who races, and is more than happy to do so. He's not exactly gonna be using the NHS, education/ benefits systems, transport infrastructure, local libraries etc...very often. 

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the nutcracker | 7 years ago
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The tax laws in this country for non resident sports stars are a joke. Greed and easy targets for HMRC. Thats why people like Usain Bolt and Rafa Nadal generally refuse to compete in this country. Why should Froome have to pay any tax on his earnings here (top prize 25000 euros). As the first comment alluded to he doesnt spend any of his time in the UK (apart from the 1 or 2 days he is racing here). On top of the income tax he has a percentage of his world wide image rights taken off him too!!!  Justified how exactly? The only reason Mr Bolt was in london at the weekend was because of the ridiculously biased tax treatment certain sports events such as the the 'Anniversary Games'  have been handed by HMRC. Ie. no athletes have to pay it....cos HMRC know if they dont, bolt wont come and they wont sell half as many tickets to fill the tax payer funded olympic stadium as they would otherwise. In the end though, I'm sure Froomy will have a switched on accountant so most of the tax due will somehow be written off.

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bobbinogs replied to the nutcracker | 7 years ago
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the nutcracker wrote:

...Why should Froome have to pay any tax on his earnings here (top prize 25000 euros)...

...perhaps the fact that he has raced under a British racing license since 2008 would give him some moral (if not legal) onus to pay something to the country that he is apparently happy to race for.  It has always seemed a contradiction to me that he has been happy to go with the British thing (his entitlement to British Citizenship is beyond question, btw) when he then goes and gets a Kenyan flag painted on his TT and constantly talks about returning 'home'  (to South Africa) after cycling.  I wonder what benefits racing for Britain brings him now, or maybe it was a means to an end and he know feels some obligation to keep the British license?

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tritecommentbot replied to bobbinogs | 7 years ago
2 likes

Bobbinogs wrote:

the nutcracker wrote:

...Why should Froome have to pay any tax on his earnings here (top prize 25000 euros)...

...perhaps the fact that he has raced under a British racing license since 2008 would give him some moral (if not legal) onus to pay something to the country that he is apparently happy to race for.  It has always seemed a contradiction to me that he has been happy to go with the British thing (his entitlement to British Citizenship is beyond question, btw) when he then goes and gets a Kenyan flag painted on his TT and constantly talks about returning 'home'  (to South Africa) after cycling.  I wonder what benefits racing for Britain brings him now, or maybe it was a means to an end and he know feels some obligation to keep the British license?

 

Call the cops. Man gets birth country flag painted on bike.

 

Why does he need to pay the UK anything, and where does morality even come into it.

 

Just a lot of random Daily Mail thoughts strung together in one paragraph.

 

He can paint a flag of planet Kepler7974-x for all I give a toss. He's a British Citizen and Britain gets credited with his performances. Benefits flow both ways.

 

How he feels about his nationality will ebb and flow as he gets older has more time to reflect. That's his personal business that can't be simplfied by some comical sense of patronage to you as a Brit.

 

Good on him for paying homage to his birth country. He spends the vast majority of his time swathed in the Union Jack with little to no reference to Kenya, yet as soon as he does one tiny thing you shit yourself so hard it explodes all over your keyboard and we have to look at it in horror on the internet.

 

 

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Jem PT | 7 years ago
0 likes

It would be brilliant to see Froomey do the Ride London!

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tritecommentbot | 7 years ago
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Not that it would matter anyway, trickle down economics is a bad joke.

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Rich_cb | 7 years ago
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Leviathan | 7 years ago
1 like

How many days has this man ever actually spent in this country? Unless he pays his taxes here he should be flying the flag of Monaco.

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vonhelmet replied to Leviathan | 7 years ago
3 likes

Leviathan wrote:

How many days has this man ever actually spent in this country? Unless he pays his taxes here he should be flying the flag of Monaco.

That's not how nationality works.

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