Chris Froome during his stage 19 solo breakaway at the Giro, riding into the leader's jersey and towards overall victory, the last time he ever crossed the line first in a race (Photo: Luca Bettini)
Chris Froome has confirmed his retirement, 11 months after his last race and more than eight years after he last won a race. The former Team Sky and Israel Premier Tech rider for the first time confirmed his retirement while being paid to appear at an event sponsored by Skoda.
His last race, though he didn't know it at the time, was the final stage of Tour de Pologne (2.UWT) on August 11th last year. However, shortly after that race he hit a road sign at speed while out training in France.
He suffered a potentially life-threatening pericardial rupture - a tear to the sac that surrounds the heart - as well as multiple broken bones. Froome was widely expected to stop racing at the end of last year, when his contract with Israel Premier Tech was due to expire.
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However, even though he never raced again, he had never announced his retirement, made no public comments and no event, or send-off, was ever held despite his place in the sport as a four-time Tour to France winner.
The manner of his slipping out of the pro peloton, without even a brief comment by the rider, or any of his former teams or team mates, is unusual to the point of extraordinary.
But now he has confirmed his career is over, just as he returns to the Tour, where he will be working for Skoda.
It was at an event sponsored by the car manufacturer, ahead of the first stage of the Tour in Barcelona on Friday, that Froome responded "yes" when asked if his racing days were over.
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"Unfortunately, there was that fall last summer; that wasn't the way I wanted it to end. But even then, I knew it was over," he said.
Froome won four Tours (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017), as well as two Vueltas (2011, 2017) and the Giro in 2018, the last race he ever won.
On stage 19 of that race, he attacked solo on the Finestre to win by three minutes and take the race lead from Simon Yates.
Though Froome seemed to be as good as ever at that time, that was the last race where he ever crossed the line first, even though he placed 3rd at the Tour that year.
The following season, 2019, he suffered a life-threatening crash on a TT recon ride at Critérium du Dauphiné (2.UWT) and never regained his former powers.
Froome rode the following season for Team Sky but was let go at the end of that year, when his contract expired. He then raced for five more seasons, all of the winless, with Israel Premier Tech.
He returned an adverse analytical finding for salbutamol in the Vuelta in 2017, which he won. And though the ruling went in his favour, it was a controversy that will be referenced in most accounts of his career.
His carer for long periods at Sky/Ineos, David Rozman, was also linked - during evidence in court - to the doctor at the centre of the Aderlass doping inquiry. The evidence suggested Rozman and the doctor were in telephone contact.
However, those contacts pre-dated the events the doctor was investigated for. No finding has been reached against Rozman, indeed no allegation made against him.
