Team Sky is fighting back, trying to get Chris Froome in the Tour de France after he has been told he is not welcome this year.
Instead of waiting for what it believes will be a controversy that blows up in its face over the next three weeks, and perhaps longer term in the future; the Tour de France is set to try and block Chris Froome from the race.
The move, by Tour owners ASO, means those who own and run the race do not want the reigning champion in the event.
In an email ASO told Team Sky Chris Froome was not allowed to ride the Tour, which starts next Saturday.
"The Tour de France wants at all costs to avoid being in the same situation as the recent Giro d’Italia, where the final victory of Froome is now marked with an asterisk," according to a report in French newspaper Le Monde.
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Under article 28 of its own rules, ASO and the Tour can block a rider whose participation it believes would damage the race,
Under the article the race "expressly reserves the right to refuse participation in - or to exclude from - the event, a team or any of its members whose presence would be such as to damage the image or reputation of ASO or the event”.
The first stage of an appeal is already launched by Team Sky. It will be heard by National Olympic Committee of French Sport next Tuesday. And the Court of Arbitration for Sport may hear any appeal.
The matter will all unfold very quickly as a decision must be reached before the race begins in six days time.
Whatever the outcome, the move has effectively exploded the Froome controversy; a ticking time bomb since last September when he returned an adverse test sample for asthma drug salbutamol on the Vuelta.
If ASO is successful, Froome will not ride. It would mean the leading rider of his generation would be officially categorised as damaged goods by the biggest race in the world.
And it would be confirmation that race does not want the rider in the event for fear of contamination.
If Froome is successful in an appeal, it means he will have had to resort to legal challenges to get into the race.
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The appeals process, and the media coverage of it, is likely to inflame public opinion in France. And the welcome for Froome on the roads of France is likely to be very mixed, if he rides the race.
Whatever the outcome; ASO is attempting to bring the matter to a head and deal with it in its own time, something the UCI is hopelessly unable to.
Froome returned his adverse sample towards the end of the Vuelta, which he went on to win. He was informed of the result just before the World Championships.
However, Froome decided to ride the Worlds and claimed a bronze medal in the TT. He has since continued to race, as he is entitled to.
He won the Giro; going on an 80km solo breakaway to take the race lead having looked well out of the running earlier in the event.
Because salbutamol is allowed to certain levels, his adverse test result from the Vuelta is not an automatic doping offence that carries a suspension.
Instead, in what has been exposed as a ridiculous situation – which the UCI, rather than Froome or Team Sky, is responsible for – the rider and his team have an unlimited amount of time to prove there is an innocent explanation for his heightened levels of salbutamol.
And while that process is continuing, he is permitted to race. When it is finally resolved; if he is convicted of a doping offence a penalty will be decided upon.
The Giro organisers must wait until the matter is resolved before they can be sure that Chris Froome’s victory will stand. He may lose results under any penalty for a doping conviction.
And now the Tour de France, having been damaged by repeated doping controversies and which now has no official winner for any of the Lance Armstrong years, does not want to face the same risk.
Rather than suggesting Froome is guilty of any offence – which he is not, at present – the Tour says it wants to block the rider on the grounds it may get dragged into the Froome doping controversy.
For example, if Froome won the race or even won stages and then was subsequently banned and lost those results; the Tour would need to go back and correct those results.
It would need to award the 2018 title to another rider if Froome won it and was later suspended and/or lost results.
It tried to ban Tom Boonen in 2009, saying his cocaine test result was incompatible with the image of the race. But Boonen eventually won out and rode the race; performing poorly and abandoning after 14 stages.
However, the previous year ASO had succeeded in banning the Astana team. That meant Alberto Contador could not defend his title. He won the Vuelta and Giro that year instead.
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