When former top pro Laurent Jalabert's comments about Chris Froome were interpreted as doping innuendo, this British TV crew confronted him with the cameras rolling.
Now working on the Tour de France as a commentator for French media, former top French professional - and darling of the public in his home country - Laurent Jalabert has clearly irked the British media and race leader Chris Froome.
Jalabert is a former Vuelta overall winner. And as well as taking multiple stages in the Tour, he won the climbers' classification twice at the Tour and the green jersey, also twice.
He is a former world time trial champion, took 25 stage wins in Grand Tours, five monument classics and was world number 1 from 1995 to 1999.
With that pedigree; when he speaks, French cycling fans and the general public take note.
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He is hugely influential despite the fact he was accused of having used EPO when samples taken at the 1998 Tour were retrospectively tested.
When appearing before a French parliamentary inquiry two years ago on the doping issue, his denial of drug use was qualified.
"At (team) ONCE, in the evening after the stages, the doctor took care of us; for our recovery. But we didn’t really know what it was.
"A relationship with doctors based on mutual trust was established, so we didn’t ask questions. We were treated, I’ve never said otherwise. Were we doped? I believe we weren’t…”
In recent days he used the term "on another planet" to describe Froome's riding in the Tour.
It is the same term the French sports newspaper L'Équipe used in an historic headline to describe the now disgraced Lance Armstrong as the net closed in on the embattled Texan.
Froome yesterday took to Twitter to challenge Jalabert (below) over what has been regarded as the Frenchman's doping innuendo about the Kenyan-born Briton's performance thus far on the Tour.
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.@JalabertLaurent if you’re going to deny making statements about me maybe you should remember that you’re being recorded on Live TV/Radio
— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) July 19, 2015
The Team Sky leader has said he believes some of the reporting on his performance by sections of the media - especially the French broadcast media - had whipped up the hostility his squad has endured from some on the roadside in recent days.
Nicolas Roche told stickybottle he was disappointed the whole team had been booed and insulted, with a number of the riders spat at.
And perhaps playing the patriotic card, Matt Rendell of ITV decided to use his fluent French to simply walk up to Jalabert back stage at the race and challenge him about his comments on Froome.
He not only asked him to expand on and explain his remarks about the man in yellow, but to also comment on the allegations that he himself had doped during his career.
The result is captured in the clip below posted on YouTube by Michelle F; Froome's wife Michelle perhaps?
ITV pounce on Jalabert
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