Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas axed from Tour de France
British dominance of the Tour de France all but ended when Team Ineos omitted Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas from this year’s race.
British dominance of the Tour de France all but ended when Team Ineos omitted Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas from their line-up for this year’s race.
The absence of Froome, 35, from the eight-man team was not entirely unexpected in light of his battle to recover from a career-threatening crash last year. The news of Thomas’s omission, however, came as more of a shock given his victory in 2018 and his second-place finish last year.
The 34-year-old Welshman was beaten 13 months ago by Egan Bernal, his Team Ineos colleague, and Dave Brailsford has chosen to go with the 23-year-old Colombian as team leader this year. Bernal will have no shortage of quality to support him, with Richard Carapaz, 27, who won last year’s Giro d’Italia, and the gifted Russian Pavel Sivakov, 23, who is also a French citizen, among a line-up that includes only one Briton in Luke Rowe.
Bradley Wiggins, who secured a first Tour title for the team in 2012, Froome and Thomas claimed six Tours in seven years for British riders before Bernal’s victory last year.
Any chance of a British rider returning to the top of the podium in Paris soon looks remote, even if Froome has secured a big-money move to Israel Start-Up Nation next season.
Ineos announced that Froome will pursue an eighth grand-tour victory at La Vuelta in October, while Thomas will head to Italy for the Giro in the same month.
While Brailsford, the team principal, has displayed his ruthless streak in essentially dropping two riders who have been with Team Sky from the beginning — indeed this will be the first Tour since 2009 without Froome or Thomas on the startline — it was clearly based on form and their struggles in the Criterium du Dauphine last week.
“Egan will once again target the yellow jersey in France and we are very excited to give last year’s Giro winner, Richard Carapaz, his debut in this year’s Tour also,” Brailsford, 56, said.
“Geraint will target the Giro and take on the opportunity to double up his Tour de France win with another grand-tour title, with the aim of being the first Welshman to win it.
“Chris Froome will target the Vuelta. Chris is a legend of our sport, a true champion who has demonstrated incredible grit and determination to come back from his crash last year.
“We want to support him to compete for another grand-tour title and the Vuelta gives him that little bit more time to continue his progress to the top level.
“I am very proud that we have several current, and I am sure future, grand-tour champions in the team. Selecting the right leader in the right race with the right support team is critical and has meant we have had to analyse all the latest information to make sure we are in the best position possible to optimise our performances in the coming months.”
Team Ineos will be known as the Ineos Grenadiers for the Tour and Brailsford remains confident despite their failure to control the Dauphine.
“We have been analysing closely how we can win the Tour de France this year and we have a passionate team united by a common purpose, ready to get the job done,” he said.
In a recent interview with ProCycling magazine, Thomas had described this year’s Tour as plan A. His demeanour in a video released by Ineos suggested that he was deeply disappointed by the news, despite claiming to the contrary. “It’s nice to finally have a firm plan in place and know what I’m doing and try to get some sort of positive out of this year,” he said. “I’ve always loved Italy: the roads, the fans and the food, obviously. I’m looking forward to going back.”
Perhaps Froome was more philosophical.
“It’s definitely a readjustment for me, moving the goalposts from the Tour de France to the Vuelta,” he said. “I’ve had an incredible recovery from the big crash I had last year and I’m in a very fortunate position to be back racing already, but I’m not confident I can really fulfil the necessary job that would be needed for me at this year’s Tour de France.
“I think it’s a lot more realistic targeting the Vuelta and it gives me a chance to get really stuck into something that’s deliverable.”
The Times
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