As Sky prepare to announce their nine-man team of riders for the Tour de France on Monday, Chris Froome has identified the squad’s “British core” as a major positive in his attempt to win the race for the second time in three years.
Froome is one of the favourites for a Tour that begins with a 13.8km individual time trial in Utrecht on Saturday, before the peloton meanders through the Netherlands and Belgium, then snakes its way along the north-east of France before hitting the mountains down south after the first rest day.
It is there, high in the Pyrenees and Alps, that the main contenders will fight it out, going wheel to wheel to see who will mount the top step of the podium in Paris at the conclusion of what is expected to be one of the most closely fought Grand Tours in years.
“I think one thing that is a bit different this year is that it definitely feels that the core of the team is British,” said Froome in Monaco last week. “There’s a lot more of a British core in the team and it feels like everyone’s on the same page in terms of communication. Everyone’s just 100% committed and we’ve got the buy-in from everyone.
“It feels like all my team-mates are in a good place themselves. Everyone’s been working extremely hard towards the Tour, but everyone in their own personal lives is in a great place. It feels as if everyone is thriving off this good, positive energy.”
The prevailing mood in Team Sky has not always been so harmonious. Riding as the wingman for Bradley Wiggins’s successful tilt at the Tour in 2012, Froome found himself at the centre of a decidedly public power struggle with his team leader and seemed to be harbouring thoughts of mutiny as Wiggins struggled in the mountains on two separate stages.
Froome would later blame a lack of communication, rather than insubordination, for his apparent muscle-flexing, stating that Wiggins “doesn’t really speak much to anyone, so he’s a difficult guy like that”.
This year, the Australian Richie Porte will ride as Froome’s senior lieutenant, having had his own doomed shot at Grand Tour glory in this year’s Giro, which he quit after two weeks following a succession of crashes and the intervention of race panjandrums who punished him with a two-minute penalty for accepting the mid-stage gift of a wheel from Simon Clarke, his friend, rival and compatriot on the Orica–GreenEdge team. Froome dismisses the notion that Porte’s Giro exertions may adversely affect his Tour de France performance.
“No, I don’t think so,” he says. “I think Richie gave the Giro a good go and things didn’t work out for him there due to circumstances. There were a number of factors there. Richie was a massive part of my being able to win my Tour back in 2013. He’s always been a solid right-hand man for me in the mountains. I’m pretty sure he’s going to bounce back just fine. I wouldn’t say he’s any more exhausted than Alberto [Contador], who did an extra week longer.”
While Froome’s recent victory in the Critérium du Dauphiné bodes well for the challenges ahead, off the road, Sky’s Tour preparations have hit a couple of metaphorical speed-bumps in the run-up to the Grand Départ.
On Wednesday, Froome admitted that earlier this year he missed the second drugs test of his career, blaming over-zealous staff at an Italian hotel, where he was enjoying a break with his wife, for refusing to let testers disturb the couple early one morning as they slept in their room. He was, however, prepared to concede he ought to have made more effort to inform the hotel staff he may have visitors bearing sample jars and issue instructions that every effort should be made to co-operate with them.
Another aggravation the Sky chief, Sir David Brailsford, could probably have done without came when an 11-man shortlist from which his nine Tour riders seemed likely to be selected was published on the Tour de France section of their team website. It was later removed, but not before the conspicuous absence of the Irish rider Nicolas Roche, an accomplished super-domestique, had been noticed.
Sky immediately denied the shortlist denoted their final squad, blaming “a third party” who works with them on their website. “I think Nico’s got a good chance of being in the team,” said Froome. “He’s done all the recons, all the training camps. He’s been a big part of the buildup and I’d say he’s got a very strong chance of being in that final nine.”
The possible omission of Roche suggests Froome will be well served and protected by the eight team-mates who roll down the starting ramp in Utrecht, although Sky’s defeat in the team time trial at the Critérium du Dauphiné, similar to the corresponding stage nine from Vannes to Plumelec on Le Tour, must be a minor source of concern.
“We’re in an incredibly strong position to have such a strong team, such a strong pool of riders to select from,” says Froome. “If I just look around the other names on the potential long list: guys like Geraint Thomas, who came close to winning the Tour de Suisse last week. Richie, who’s a GC contender in his own right. Leo König, who was top 10 in the Giro and is also a GC rider. We’ve got the Classics guys, who’ve performed so well this year: Ian Stannard, Geraint again, Luke Rowe. It’s certainly going to be a tough decision to make.”
The time for speculation will end on Monday, when after months of triumphs and disappointments, blood, sweat, tears and speculation, the lineup of peloton-towing automatons who will board the gleaming black coach that is the Team Sky Death Star bound for Utrecht will finally be revealed.
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