Sean Kelly on how to reform cycling, comparing Froome to Merckx
Sean Kelly has said that the Tour de France is already a foregone conclusion unless something radical is done to change the way some teams mop up the best riders as soon as they start showing potential. “It’s almost like the time with Merckx, when the rider goes well Merckx buys him so he wouldn’t be a challenge to him,” he said.
By Brian Canty
Sean Kelly has said that in order to level the playing field in professional cycling there should be some way to prevent the gulf between the bigger and the smaller teams from getting too wide.
The Irish cycling legend believes the sport has become something of an arms race in recent years with Team Sky in particular mopping up the best talents as soon as they start to show potential.
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It has led to somewhat predictable outcomes on occasion, no more so than at the Tour de France where Chris Froome has proven ultra-dominant in the last two editions.
“I think there should be a cap some way on the top teams because they’re going further ahead and the other teams getting wild cards, the gap there is growing too much,” he said.
“A salary cap or a cap on the number of riders you can have on their classement (in the UCI rankings), you can’t have all the top riders.
“With Team Sky, the moment a rider starts going well… it’s almost like the time with Merckx, when the rider goes well Merckx buys him so he wouldn’t be a challenge to him.
“Sky is the same, look at Kwiatkowski, they buy those riders in. Mikel Landa, the moment he started doing well, they signed him up.”
In Chris Froome they have the world’s best Grand Tour rider and Kelly cannot see him being beaten this year as he chases Tour number four and his third in-a-row.
“When you look at Froome and Sky, Froome was so impressive in the Tour last year but they had such a strong team.
“We saw Movistar and Valverde trying to break it up when Valverde went in a group that was very aggressive at the start.
“But up front there was a lot of riders didn’t want to ride because he (Valverde) was there.
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“Sky had lots of their riders, Stannard, Kiryienka, Rowe, they just rode at the front, kept the break at 2-3 minutes and the boys came back.
“The Sky guys went on the front and clawed it back. Then you go to the mountaintop finishes, you have Poels on the front, Nieve is there, what can other teams do?”
Of course, Nairo Quintana (Movistar) is one rider who has managed to steal away and take stages, like 2015 on Alpe d’Huez, but it’s an all too rare occurrence.
“I think if you can get him right for the Tour he’s capable of challenging, he’s the only one.
“He’s able to ride in the conditions in the early part of the race.
“On an uphill time-trial he can do very well and the mountaintop finishes if he’s in really good shape he can put Froome under pressure.
“But the riders Froome has around him, they’re too bloody strong!”
Physically anyway, Froome has proven bomb-proof while mentally he’s also displayed immense resolve.
“I think he got a lot of negative stuff two years ago when they were throwing everything at him and he got a real hard time from the journalists and the spectators on the roadside.
“But he got through. That won’t break him down, he’s above that now. Mentally, he’s rock solid.”
That doesn’t mean the challenges won’t keep coming from riders.
And two who can challenge him, it would seem, are Frenchman Romain Bardet (Ag2r La Mondiale) and the never-say-die Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo), the latter proving at Paris-Nice there's still life in him yet.
Kelly doesn’t believe so, mind.
“I think Bardet was lucky because on the stage to Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc in the end wet conditions and crashes and all that…he took the advantage because he’s that style of rider. For him to challenge Froome I think it’s too early.
“As for Contador, we’ve seen the best of him. Can he get close to winning again? It’s difficult to see him win against Froome and Quintana.”
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