- Chris Froome during his stage 18 solo breakaway at the 2018 Giro d'Italia, riding into the leader's jersey and towards overall victory (Photo: Luca Bettini)
Chris Froome has still not made any statement confirming he has retired - an extraordinary state of affairs for a seven-time Grand Tour winner. However, the British rider has now secured a new role that strongly suggests he has left the peloton behind, even if he's not officially confirming it.
He has joined Vekta as chief innovation officer and will chair the Vekta 'athlete advisory board', which also includes Ireland's Eddie Dunbar, in a move announced in recent months.
Vekta - a coaching platform - stressed Froome's new role "is not an ambassadorship, it is not a name on a website". Instead, the seven-time Grand Tour winner "takes on a hands-on leadership role within Vekta, working directly across product innovation, performance modelling, and long-term platform strategy".
The company added Froome's focus "is embedded in how the platform evolves, stress-testing ideas against the reality of how fatigue accumulates, how adaptation unfolds across seasons, and how decisions are actually made under the pressure of elite competition".
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It also said he was an investor, and described Dunbar's involvement in the same way when announcing his role in the company in recent months.
“Athletes generate huge amounts of data, but without context it can quickly lose meaning," Froome said. "My focus with Vekta is on making sure performance insights are grounded in reality - how decisions feel day to day, how fatigue accumulates, and how athletes actually adapt over seasons, not just sessions.
“I’ve spent my career inside some of the most advanced performance environments in sport, and I’ve seen both the strengths and limitations of existing tools.
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"What drew me to Vekta is the team’s ambition to build something that genuinely reflects how athletes train, race, and adapt over time. For me, this is about rolling up my sleeves and helping build what comes next.”
Froome (40) suffered a life-threatening crash, during a TT recon ride, at Critérium du Dauphiné in 2019, the year after he had won the Giro, his final Grand Tour victory.
Though he returned to racing in 2020, for Ineos Grenadiers, he never regained his place at the top of the sport, apparently unable to overcome the sheer extent of his injuries.
He left the British team the following season, opting to race the past five years for Israel-Premier Tech. Froome's contract with that team ended last year.
However, though he has no contract for this season, he has made no statement after finishing racing, and no statement to confirm he is retiring. But the move to Vekta appears to be confirmation he has moved on.
Vekta styles itself as an AI enhanced tool that will aid cyclists and their coaches alike. It offers free subscriptions to coaches and says it will enhance their work with riders rather than aiming to replace coaches with AI.
It also believes coaches will be able to greatly increase the number of riders they coach, as well as dialling their training, securing better performances and helping riders reach their peaks with more certainty.
