Chris Froome’s recovery and his progress back to top form has been much slower than expected and his place in the Israel Start-Up Nation selection for the Tour de France is far from certain, one of his team’s managers has said.
Rik Verbrugghe, the team’s directeur sportif, has said
things should be much clearer around Froome and the Tour de France this week at
Critérium du Dauphiné.
"He is a huge champion for whom I
have a lot of respect, but his participation in the Tour de France is by no
means self-evident," sporting director Rik Verbrugghe told La Dernière
Heure.
“I expect there will be some clarity during this Dauphiné. He has made constant progress since the start of the season, but we would have liked his progress to be more exponential.”
Advertisement
Froome (36) suffered his career-threatening crash exactly two years ago, during a recon ride for the TT stage at the Dauphiné. While he has fought his way back into the peloton, he has not come close to his former condition in races.
Froome said last week he had lost some
weight of late, specifically2kg, and he believed that would help him ride at an
improved level this week at the Dauphiné.
Related News
On the opening stage of the race on
Sunday Froome was 75th, finishing in the bunch. On stage 2, when the peloton
numbered just 42 riders at the end of the day, Froome was 68th in a group 3:25
down.
On Tuesday’s stage 3 his performance
was better; placing 59th and losing 16 seconds, though only as a result of the
peloton splitting on the drag up to the finish.
Yesterday in the 16.4km TT Froome was 93rd, some 2:12 down on stage winner Alexey Lutsenko (Astana-Premier Tech). And on today's stage 5 he was 85th, in a group at 3:03, after being dropped on the final climb with just over 10km to the finish.
Froome has offered a realistic analysis of his hopes at
the Tour this year, saying there would be no chance he could compete for the
yellow jersey. However, he has not discussed the prospect of not even riding
the Tour this year, a race he has won four times.
"I'm very much focused on just returning back to my
former level and taking one step at a time,” Froome told journalists on the Dauphiné.
“I don't go from this level to winning the Tour de France in a few weeks."
However, he added that nobody had the insight into his
own data that he did. That meant nobody could see the improvements he had made.
Topics
