The Chris Froome Enigma

Last week, I wrote that there were only two people with a realistic chance of winning the 2018 Giro d’Italia- the current Maglia Rosa (Pink Jersey) Simon Yates of Great Britain and defending champion Tom Dumoulin from the Netherlands. However, I added an outsider to the duo, the 4-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome.

Until the start last Thursday, thats stage 18 if 21 stages, Yates had a 58sec lead over Dumoulin, but when the latter accelerated again in the last 2km of the climb, Yates was dropped and lost half of his lead- in 2 K’s!  But with two huge mountain stages on Friday and Saturday, it was expected that the diminutive Brit, a climbing ace, would pad his lead over Dumoulin, who wasn’t as good in the high mountains.

Then came stage 19, a stage that had 4 huge climbs. That’s when the Yates victory, which was built for two and half weeks, came crumbling down on the lower slopes of the 2nd of four climbs, 18km climb of gravel roads of the Finestre. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Dumoulin who created the earthquake, but Froome!

Froome, who was 3min22sec in arrears of Dumoulin, and considered “dead”, attacked with 80km to go, so unheard of in modern cycling that one writer said it was “Merckxian”, in reference to cycling’s GOAT. But it was the perfect storm: Dumuolin probably thinking it was doomed move at the same time, he was in company of four chasers, who I thought would normally get Froome back, but were either bickering or too tire to contribute.

At the end of stage 19, Yates would be 36min down, in an epic collapse, while Froome leapt over Dumoulin for a 40sec lead. But there was still the final stage 20, the final mountain stage.

But as much as Dumoulin tried, the next day by attacking Froome multiple times in the last 9km, Froome easily stifled it. Barring any catastrophic collapse, Froome is on his way to win his first Giro, and probably the greatest and most improbable “save” since Floyd Landis did a similar thing in the 2006 Tour de France.

Now, why would I reference Landis in this story?

The reason is that there is a certain number of people who didn’t believe and are angry at Froome’s stage 19 raid. In 2006, Floyd Landis, a former teammate of Lance Armstrong, rode 128km solo to win the Tour de France after collapsing the previous stage. But a few days later, he was stripped of his title after he tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. They say that anything momentous in cycling has a doping story behind it, like in the 2006 Tour. In fact, if you look closely right after the 3k to go banner, an a- - hole seemed to spit in Froome’s direction. Yes, fans are that angry!

Why all this vitriol against Froome? Well, in some twisted sort of way, cycling fans are still struggling to believe that their sport is clean, yet they still watch the race on the roads.

If you remember, Froome is still under investigation for a doping violation, yet the drug in question is not considered performance enhancing that he is allowed to race under the rules. Still another twisted instance of the sport.

In the end, Froome may have won the Giro, because of his mental and physiological strengths but the way he won it, was just out of this world. On the other hand, he and the sport will be more scrutinized than ever. Whether he wins or loses, the world of Froome will stay as it is. Thats just the nature of the beast.