Having won the yellow jersey at every Tour de France since 2012 bar one, Team Ineos will remain the favourites in the years ahead though Tom Boonen believes Chris Froome could stop them.
Froome has won four of the seven Tour titles Team
Ineos-Team Sky has claimed, starting with Bradley Wiggins in 2012.
Vincenzo Nibali is the only non Team Sky-Team Ineos rider
to claim the iconic yellow jersey in the period since Wiggins won.
However, Boonen believes Froome – if he gets back to his
former condition – has the ability to disrupt the way Team Ineos races and also
beat them to Tour victory when he takes ups his place with Israel Start-Up Nation
next year.
Before then, Froome will ride one last Tour with Team Ineos and will have the current champion, Egan Bernal, and the 2018 winner, Geraint Thomas, as team mates.
Advertisement
Boonen believes the rivalry Froome would have faced
within the team after this year justifies his decision to go to Israel Start-Up
Nation.
"It’s certainly not an unwise move. No matter how
realistic the chances of failure seem, with this change he makes them just a
bit smaller,” said Boonen of Froome’s transfer eliminating that inner team
rivalry.
"Ineos is supposed to be a 'trusted environment',”
Boonen explained of what the team should be for four-time Tour winner Froome.
Related News
“But you need to take that with a good pinch of salt. ‘Come
on Chris, go ahead’ - I don't see Bernal and Thomas saying that.
“He cannot compete with that pair so he has done well to
leave after this season,” said Boonen, adding Froome was making the most of the
Tour chances he had left open to him by changing team.
Boonen, now 39 years and who retired in early 2017 - also believes Froome will bring other riders with him from Team Ineos, adding he needed five very strong team mates to take on Team Ineos in the Tour.
However, he said while Team Ineos had a way of using team strength to slowly grind down the opposition, Froome (35) may take the fight to them with aggression.
He could perhaps stop Team Ineos racing the way they
prefer and also beat them to Tour yellow in the process.
“They gently squeeze everyone to death, until only they
remain. It's a system that Froome knows through and through,” said Boonen of
Team Ineos.
“But if one man can dismantle that and turn it into his
own advantage it's Froome,” he said.
However, he added his opinion on that was dependent on
Froome getting back to top shape and saying big crashes, such as Froome’s last
year, always leave a longer term impact.
Topics
