Tag: Chris Froome
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Fabio Aru turns up
I’d predicted that the final climb on stage 11 would deliver an ‘every man for himself’ scenario. As it turned out, it was Chris Froome for himself and then everyone else together. Fabio Aru was the one man to successfully detach himself from the leaders’ group. The young Italian, who came third in the Giro,…
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Eight pairs to watch in the 2014 Vuelta a Espana
There aren’t enough race previews binding riders together into twos. Let’s be honest, all the best things come in pairs. Also Twixes. The Chrises – Chris Horner and Chris Froome Horner won last year. Froome’s one of the big favourites to win this year. What more do you need to know? Horner’s age, maybe? He’s…
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Boom! Cobbles and crashes
The Boom in question was of course Lars Boom, the former Cyclocross world champion, who won one of the hardest, most miserable stages in recent memory. Miserable for the riders, that is. For those of us watching on TV, it was absorbing. Was it carnage? It was carnage. Commentary basically consisted of: “There’s been a…
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Yellow jersey contenders in 2014
Who’s going to win this year’s Tour de France? Probably one of these guys and most likely one of the first two. But plenty can happen over the course of a Grand Tour. Just think what you were doing three weeks ago. Okay, it was probably much the same, but you almost certainly aren’t operating…
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Wiggins, Froome and Grand Tour fitness
You can ride hard one day and then feel good enough to ride hard again the next day or you can ride hard one day and then need to spend the next day on the sofa drinking tea, eating sandwiches and moaning like one of the undead each time you get up. That’s Bradley Wiggins’…
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Who won the Dauphiné? Contador or Froome?
Er, it was Andrew Talanksy, actually. How the hell did that happen? It was down to an unusually sizeable break. 23 riders got away from the peloton early on, including several riders who were within a minute or so of the race lead. Talansky was among them – which was surprising being as he was…
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Alberto Contador won’t fade away
Meaning two things. One, he’s resurgent this year. Two, if he’s not leading a stage race, he’ll be snapping at whoever is leading until the very last day, like a yappy little dog with a Napoleon complex. Contador finally gained the Dauphiné lead on stage seven. As Sky reached the end of their protracted mountain…
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Jurgen Van Den Broeck’s back
As in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. This is by far the most exciting aspect of the Dolphin (Dauphiné) from my perspective. I’ve written about Jurgen Van Den Broeck before, but you’ve probably forgotten, because being forgotten is very much Jurgen Van Den Broeck’s defining characteristic. The Belgian’s twice finished fourth in…
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Form, fitness, fatigue and Froome – what we’ve learnt from the Tour of Romandy
As expected, Chris Froome beat Simon Spilak by some margin in the time trial which rounded off the Tour of Romandy. This gave him the overall win and resulted in exactly the same podium as last year, with world champion, Rui Costa, in third. But as with so many stage races, the result itself seems…
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Who needs team-mates?
Every pro cyclist actually. But at the same time, there’s little meaning in being team leader if you only ever finish right alongside your garishly-attired brethren. On stage three of the Tour of Romandy, Chris Froome made light of Team Sky’s relative weakness of late and did his thing alone. His thing? Vincenzo Nibali attacked…