Chris Froome is coming under increasing pressure from his Israel Start-Up Nation to start performing to a higher standard and he will not ride the Tour de France next year unless spefici goals are met.
While team management did not set out what those goals were, they said achieving them would open up opportunities for him. But if he did not achieve them, alternative options would be explored.
The team's lead sports director Rik Verbrugghe said it was clear Froome was no longer "the Chris Froome from Team Sky". He added the team was missing a big GC rider in the roster, though he said Froome was still trying to build his condition after his crash in 2018.
But he was clear that Froome now needed to begin performing at a high level, and that winning a race was the key.
Advertisement
“The thing is we need and want to see results from Chris next year,” Verbrugghe said in an interview with Cycling Weekly. “It could be in a small race, but hopefully it’s in a bigger race - even better, the biggest race of them all. But even a small race would be a beginning, a step in the right direction.
Related News
“I cannot explain the whole plan and strategy we have for him for next season, but it’s like a spider web program of short-term goals, and if he reaches one goal, it opens up to something else. But if he doesn’t reach that goal, it opens up to an alternative step.
“It’s not planned that he will go the Tour, except if he passes through all of the stages he needs to. If that happens, we have will a Chris who is competitive at the start of the Tour, but that’s not a guarantee.
“If it goes well, it’ll be a normal calendar before the Tour but if it doesn’t go like this, we didn’t see the results we want to see, then he will go to a race program that is different, much lighter.
“We need to analyse what is competitive for Chris. It depends on his training, comparing his numbers, and sometimes you can overestimate what he will do based on his numbers. Depending on his evolution, he can get better, more ambitious in races.
“We saw some progression after the Tour once he got rid of the virus, but we didn’t have time to see it afterwards. Hopefully this year we will.”
