importantly, was a thirst to succeed.
The desire for success was to be
tested to the limit when Froome
embarked on the pro-career trail. It
was a nightmare where everything
that could wrong, did go wrong. It
began ignominiously with shopbought white t-shirts for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
Then came his a last-minute
entry into the wholly unsuitable
BMX competition.
This was followed by a crash
within 200 metres of the World
Under-23 Championships time
trial – where Froome famously
turned up for the managers’
meeting, for he was in a Kenyan
team that had backroom staff
totalling 1, and a doping scandal
in his first Tour, involving his team,
Barloworld.
Froome persevered through all
the adversity. His first break came
when he was spotted after sitting
atop the time-trial standings for
a couple of hours in Melbourne,
back in 2006. Four years later,
Froome had moved on and up,
joining Team Sky in 2010, after
swapping his Kenyan licence
for a British one a few years
previously.
He came under the tutelage of Dave
Brailsford and Shane Sutton, and became
support for Bradley Wiggins. But Froome
was slow to impress in Sky colours. He was
not helped by injuries and series of medical conditions that limited him, Bilharzia
being the main cause of fatigue and the subsequent poor performances that followed.
But by 2011 he was beginning to flourish.
In the Vuelta a España of that year,
Froome was expected to be Wiggins’ main
domestique (ride shadow) carrying him up
the climbs and working to close down any
breaks, with Wiggins just sitting on his wheel.
But Froome quickly proved himself the
stronger, eventually finishing second. This
was a sign of things to come, and in 2012’s
Tour de France his battles with Wiggins
came to a head.
As on the previous year’s Vuelta,
Froome was proving to have the stronger
legs on the mountains. On two occasions,
when pulling his leader up the road, Wiggins had been holding Froome back.
Twice, on the roads to Peyragudes and
La Toussuire, Froome had more legs than
Wiggins. He attacked, wanting to gain
back time for himself – mainly that lost
after a stage 1 puncture – but also to kill
off Wiggins’ competitors. In many ways
his team pace, although seen as a betrayal,
particularly by Wiggins himself, had been
about proving his worth.
Chris Froome claims
the 2015 Tour de
France title as he and
his Sky teammates
cross the finish line
on the Champs
Elysees, July 2015
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