Tour De France 2015 – Froome Repeats

 

On the final stage of the tour, a day of procession around Paris, this article looks at the highlights of the tour and also from the initial article, how close I got to how I predicted the top 10 would finish.

Chris Froome and Team Sky have been magnificent on this tour. Their endeavours and management of days in the saddle have been outstanding and the selfless acts shown by riders like Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas in giving their all for their team leader is something you rarely see in other sports; total commitment to the act of others.

Unfortunately for Froome and his team, the stigma of previous cyclists failing drugs test will take many years to go, and all super human efforts made by cyclists have those doubters making sounds about calling those efforts into question, which is a real shame. Despite the off road problems, Froome becomes the first Brit to win this prestigious event for a second time.

The tour has been excellent with a number of great stages and incidents. Vincenzo Nibali, one of the race favourites, was involved in an early incident and never really recovered. He had some strong stages but with the incident happening towards the beginning, he was out of the running to win it.

Similarly with Alberto Contador, another former winner, he had some good days in the mountains, but lacked consistency. Tejay van Garderen was having a very good tour, and was in the lead groups on the mountain stages, sitting in a good position in the general classification until illness unfortunately withdrew him out of the tour when he was in third place.

For me the stand out performance on any of the stages was Chris Froome on stage ten, which was the first mountain stage in the Pyrenees, Tarbes to La Pierre – Saint Martin, when he rode away on a steep climb from world renowned climbers such as Contador, Nibali and Quintana. It was a stunning performance from a great rider who took big chunks of time out of all his major rivals that day.

Froome would be the first to acknowledge the support he got from his team, with two in particular in Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas. I have no doubt if they were team leaders elsewhere they would have finished in the general classification top ten, but a lot of their efforts and energy were bringing back attacks for Froome or setting tempo at the front of groups to try to stop attacks.

Thomas was in fourth place but by stage eighteen had nothing left, and in two days went down to fifteenth position overall losing more than thirty minutes in that time period, but what a tour he had.

Nairo Quintana, the young Colombian rider, had a fantastic tour. He is a great natural climber and will win the tour one day, and at 25 years of age he certainly has time on his hands. On Alpe D’Huez, which is a very steep gradient climb, we saw Quintana try on numerous occasions to attack, with incredible bursts of speed out of the saddle, giving his all to try to get back the time on Froome. He did eventually break Team Sky but could not regain the time he needed, eventually being only one minute and twelve seconds back from Froome.

Also a special mention for Peter Sagan who, for the fourth time, won the green jersey as the points winner of the tour.

Chris Froome has now won the tour twice. The Brit  was also the winner of the polka dot jersey for the best climber of the tour. The rider is only 30 years of age so there could be another couple of tour wins in him. Amidst doping allegations, I just hope he gets the credit he deserves, he is one exceptional cyclist.

Before the tour began I predicted the top 10, so how did I do? I had four of the top five, and out of the top ten I selected I had five correct, so bit disappointed with that, but I did predict the winner!

 

Final General Classification Top 10

1. CHRIS FROOME (GBR)

2. Nairo Quintana (Col) 1 minute 12 seconds back

3. Alejandro Valverde (Esp) five minutes and twenty five seconds back

4. Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) eight minutes and thirty six seconds back

5. Alberto Contador (Esp) nine minutes and forty eight seconds back

6. Robert Gesink (Ned) ten minutes and forty seven seconds back

7. Bauke Mollema (Ned) fifteen minutes and fourteen seconds back

8. Mathias Frank (Sui) fifteen minutes and thirty nine seconds back

9. Romain Bardet (Fra) sixteen minutes back

10. Pierre Rolland (Fra) seventeen minutes and thirty seconds back.

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