I hate to say it, but I fear he may not come back as strong, certainly over 3 weeks.
I would say the Tour before he won the Giro and the Giro he won, he was starting to show chinks in the armour.
Sadly, it may be that G and Froomey may have to give way soon to Bernal, Carapaz, Sivakov and Sosa. Kwiato also fancies his chances at a GC.
Will that ever happen at Ineos though, i suspect not? Heās no spring chicken.
Must admit, iād like to see thatā¦ would be interesting in the mountains, thatās for sure!
I just donāt see him as a man for the high mountains. Yes, heās an outstanding classics rider and super strong but a bit like Valverde, at altitude heās just not quite as good as some of the others.
Yeah, very much doubt it. Sir Dave is getting the youngsters ready to take over.
Would love to see Tao make it.
Classics and superdomestique. Him, Nieve and Landa pulled Froomey up the mountains in the 2017 tour.
Must check the schedule, if it all happens we have a hell of an exciting 2-3 months of bike racing. Spring classics will feel weird, mind.
The BBCās takeā¦
Ineos not renewing Froomeās contract after the end of this year, so heās heading to Israel Cycle Academy next season -
Interesting one. Brailsford rarely gets it wrong when he lets someone go.
Bernal for the next 10 years then!
I think itās sad that a multiple GT winner goes out like this i.e. due to a crash and never regaining form. Iām guessing that heās not good enough to lead Ineos now and too expensive/problematic as a domestique. Would be even worse if heās not good enough to be an Ineos domestiqueā¦
We donāt know if he was able to regain his form until the racing starts. I doubt heās able to compete with Bernal at his age and he wonāt want to play second fiddle I suspect. Bernal certainly wonāt.
Bernal looks exceptionally good, just hope Quintana is in the form he was in earlier this year so we have some good racing to watch.
Sadly thatās the way most multiple Grand Tour winners seem to have gone - theyāve had a crash and/or an injury, never regained the form they had before and have slowly faded. Merckx and Hinault definitely did.
Why do they never crash/get an injury during their winning years?
Always at the end?
Itās like they donāt know how to retire at the top of their game and go on, striving to be the āmost winning-estā
This leads them to get injured, or take more risks, resulting in crashes.
However, not so long ago, there was this one guy who did recover from a nasty spell of cancer to come back and win the Tour de France a few times.
Heād have won it again if it werenāt for that pesky beef eater, too.
Isnāt it the same in many Team sports though, where top players move from the big teams to smaller ones and then fade away. Look at Beckham & Rooney for example. Cycling wise, I think only Indurain had a very short lifespan after his last Tour win? Maybe he was tired of taking all the supplements!
I think as a professional sportsman youāre a long time retired, so you probably want to maximise your earnings while you still can and if you genuinely enjoy taking part in the sport then you probably want to prolong the amount of time that you can do it at the top level. Itās not like Beckham or Rooney can play in their local 5-a-side league
Itās like in F1 at the moment, Fernando Alonso is making a comeback and Kimi Raikonnen is still racing. Where thereās really limited space at the top itās really disappointing.
Dead manās shoes!
Yes, and heās still marketable and can make money. Iām sure heās not skint but probably some way behind even an average footballer.
Plus, he could help team GB at the Olympics and have a pop at the TT?
Certain that guy has no TdF titles to his name.
Greg LeMond came back from being shot and won