The rest day will be no such thing for Chris Froome. The column inch shortfall resulting from a lack of racing has in recent times been filled with reasoned debate/rabid frothing about the performances of whoever happens to be the race leader.
Team Sky’s good performances have attracted much vitriol among those who don’t believe they can possibly be as good as they are without pharmaceutical modification (and who perhaps overlook their ability to simply buy up all of the best riders). Richie Porte says that someone punched him during stage 10, while Chris Froome became a very different kind of man in yellow when a spectator went to the trouble of pissing in a cup so that they could throw it at him. Presumably the person responsible couldn’t muster a sufficiently powerful stream to strike him directly from source.
In an entirely pointless bid to quieten some of the doping accusations, Sky have said they will release Froome’s power data from his stage 10 victory. The illusion of asymmetric insight dictates that the pro-Froome camp will take this data as vindication and will say that his doubters don’t fully understand what they are looking at. The anti-Froome camp will take it as vindication of their point of view for the exact same reason.
Everyone will argue more, column inches will be filled, none of the facts will change and Froome will still lead the race.
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