Training crash leaves Chris Froome with a 20 per cent strength imbalance in his legs

British cyclist Chris Froome has a 20 per cent strength imbalance in his legs, a legacy of his horrific crash in June 2019.

Chris Froome will structure his 2021 season around the Tour de France

British cyclist Chris Froome has revealed he has spent the past few months trying to correct a 20 per cent strength imbalance in his legs, a legacy of his horrific crash in June 2019.

The four-times Tour de France champion found the differential in his quadriceps after a difficult comeback at the end of last year, which also included the removal of two metal screws that had caused him pain in La Vuelta, where he finished 98th.

That was Froome’s final race for Team Ineos before his move to Israel Start-Up Nation. At the team’s 2021 launch, Froome confirmed he is building his season around the Tour de France but acknowledged that his comeback from serious injury after he crashed into a wall 19 months ago had been slower and harder than anticipated.

“Last year I thought I’d come a lot closer to where I needed to be than I actually was,” Froome said. “It was only once I got back racing that I felt where I was and realised the weaknesses I still had and what I still needed to work on.”

Froome, 35, said that isokinetic testing had revealed the 20 per cent deficit in quad strength, which he has been addressing in California while his teammates are at a training camp in Girona.

“I feel as if the deficit (in my legs) has been narrowed quite substantially since the end of last season,” he said. “It’s something we’re gonna have to keep working at over these next few months.”

Froome, whose last win in a grand tour was the Giro d’Italia in 2018, has missed the last two Tours. He was left out in 2020 by Ineos and went to the Vuelta as a climbing domestique as he recovered from the injuries including a fractured right femur and broken hip.

Asked if it would have been easier to quit the sport given the extent of his injuries and the recovery time, Froome said he did not want to be forced to retire by the training crash.

“It certainly would have been the easier option,” he said. “But it was not the way I wanted to finish my cycling career. Just the prospect of being basically put out by a crash, that didn’t sit well with me.”

The Times