Froome dogged by doping questions

Tour de France 2015 

Chris Froome looked the strongest of the pre-race quartet of favourites for this years Tour de France going into the first rest day. The yellow jersey had survived a potentially risky week of classics lite stages and if anything done better than just survive even if some of the time gained on rivals was as a result of their misfortune. If anyone looked like cracking it was 2014 champion Vincenzo Nibali who has suffered the ignominy of having his attacks ignored by Sky so much time he has lost. Alberto Contador found that he couldn’t follow Froome’s wheel as early as stage 3 climbing the Mur de Huy. Only Nairo Quintana has seemed able to go toe to toe with Froome; Movistar employing Alejandro Valverde as a very attacking domestique deluxe has at least ensured there’s a semblance that this year is not over yet.

The risk for anyone describing Froome’s performance and daring to use a superlative has become the narrative for this years Tour. Just as in 2013  Froome’s performances have been accompanied by noises off about whether or not said performances have been achieved legally. It’s certainly ironic, given what we learned about the team in the off season, that Vincenzo Nibali’s 2014 victory received nothing like as much vitriol. I have a theory about this.

Froome and Sky have already effectively negated any possibility in a change in the outcome of this years race, such is his superiority over the rest of the field. Because he has ‘killed’ the race it’s inevitable that people want to know how it’s been done. Froome is dominant; his rivals appear unable to respond; the GC becomes a battle for second place and into the vacuum come the doping questions. Here’s another irony. When Froome was losing ground to Alberto Contador in last year’s Vuelta did anyone ask any doping questions then? So perhaps it’s about the rider and maybe the team too?

Let’s start with Froome. As a commited member of Team Wiggo I have never really warmed to him but I have massive respect for his performances. He still looks awful to me on his bike and maybe that’s another reason why he attracts the questions. In a sport and a country where they have a word for smoothness on a bike; souplesse, Froome is the souplesse antichrist. But should winning ugly mean that the performances should be doubted? The answer of course is ‘no’ but Froome has made the odd remark (as recently as Sunday) that adds fuel to the never ending debate. If I have a problem with Froome and the doping questions it’s this; undisclosed asthma and the use of TUE’s. I covered the subject in enough posts before but the asthma / TUE thing has provided enough smoke to allow the doping conspiracy theorists a pretty big bonfire that certainly won’t abate if Froome retains his lead and wins the Tour.

Which leads us on to his team. I felt the Sky selected a really interesting team for this years Tour. The make up of the team has a really strong British core and this seems to have engendered a bit of a bunker mentality from the team that trickles down to the predominantly British fans that support the team. I get that answering what appears to be the same question again and again becomes wearing after two weeks but this is what Sky signed up for when the entered the sport in 2010. It’s 100% down to the stated aim of winning clean that subliminally sets such a high bar for the team in the eyes of cycling fans as a whole. It’s almost as if with any other team there’s an expectation that they could be using PED’s. But with Sky things seem turned upside down in that if they say they’re going to win clean their performance is compared to teams that we tacitly set lower standards for and QED Sky must be doping.

This week the debate has evolved into how someone can use Froome’s power data to ‘prove’ he’s doping verses Froome releasing his data to ‘prove’ he isn’t. It’s all pretty unedifying stuff and I can only hope that Froome’s rivals can come up with something to animate the race this week otherwise the narrative will continue to be centred around does he or doesn’t he?

Based on what we have seen so far I’m not convinced that Froome can be challenged however. Quintana seems the rider most likely at this point but no one has really put in an attack that they have managed to make stick or to shake off Froome’s key lieutenants; Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas. Thomas has been man of the match so far for me. The versatility shown be the Welshman in navigating his team leader through the tricky opening stages and then often being the last man standing on the climbs has been superb.

Away from the circus surrounding Froome I was cheered by MTN Quhbeka taking their maiden Tour stage win through Steve Cummings. Whether or not his victory topped the team taking the KOM jersey earlier in the race doesn’t really matter. The team have thoroughly deserved their wild card.

So we go into the mountains again. I’m hoping we’ll have some racing to talk about at the end of it.