Chris Froome faces a crucial test at the forthcoming Criterium du Dauphiné – the same race where his career was nearly ended by a crash in June last year – if he is to clinch a place in the Ineos Grenadiers line-up for the Tour de France later this month.
The 35 year old, who has his sights set on a record-equalling fifth yellow jersey finished in 41st place overall, more than 26 minutes behind team-mate and reigning Tour de France champion Egan Bernal at the Tour de l’Ain, which finished today.
Bernal was himself pipped to victory in the three-day race by 19 seconds by Primoz Roglic of Jumbo-Visma, who took his second successive stage win to
The Slovenian was one of three riders from the Dutch team in the top five of the general classification – Steven Kruijswijk was fourth and George Bennett fifth.
That show of strength suggests that in this topsy-turvy season, where top-level racing was suspended for almost five months and form is only now becoming clear – the dominance of Team Sky and latterly Team Ineos at the French Grand Tour faces its greatest threat since Vincenzo Nibali, then with Astana, won the 2014 edition.
Other than that, the British team has been all-conquering at the Tour de France as far as the overall is concerned, with Sir Bradley Wiggins’ victory in 2012 followed by Froome’s triumphs in 2013 and 2015-17, Geraint Thomas’s win in 2018 and Bernal prevailing last year.
And with Froome’s forthcoming move introducing an element of unpredictability – would he ride for himself, or for the team and sacrifice his own chances – and Sir Dave Brailsford having amply demonstrated in the past that he isn’t bound by sentiment when it comes to selection, it’s easy to imagine that the four-time winner may be at home in Monaco if the race starts, as planned, on 29 August a few kilometres along the Cote d’Azur in Nice.
I think the time is wrong by a day. We only have 15 hours to enter, not 1 day and 15 hours.
"Arguably" is right, there's the American Tom Molyneaux, for example, who fought Tom Cribb for the bare-knuckle championship of England, which was...
A ban is not going to make much difference. The motorists was completely illegal anyway. This is when I would invoke the Iranian judicial system -...
The objection at the time of the published changes which seemed most ludicrous to me, but dearly held onto by many, was that giving way to...
No the Hovding style head protection is not legal in Australia. Australia has its own helmet testing standard and it's done in a way (sequential...
I don't know whether to say fair play for responding or just that you are trying to mitigate any negative response from this by denying the claims....
I have been seeing this a lot.
Concerns for the less than able, doesn't seem to count with the more than able waiting in the provided parking spaces. I mean they could wait on...
I have Galibier Trail shorts from 5 or 6 years ago, I wonder of the liner short will fit in them?
It looks pointless, but don't be fooled, it is pointless! And useless. Being a dashed line it means precisely nothing. So whatever was the...