Cycling
From early success to horror crash – a look at Chris Froome’s career
Chris Froome has ridden the last race of a career that made him Britain’s most successful ever Grand Tour cyclist, and one of the best in cycling history.
Froome won seven Grand Tours, joint fourth all-time, with his four Tour de France crowns second only to Eddy Merckx, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain.
African beginnings
Born in Nairobi, Kenya, after his parents left the UK, Froome spent part of his childhood at school in South Africa. As a teenager, he began training under Kenyan pro cyclist David Kinjah, the first Black African to have raced for a European team.
Froome turned professional aged 22 and competed for Kenya at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, but he switched allegiance to Great Britain in 2008.
After starting his career with Konica Minolta, Froome was a team-mate of Geraint Thomas at Barloworld before both riders joined the upstart Team Sky in 2010.
Rapid rise
There were question marks over his long-term future with the team after a slow start, but things changed rapidly during the 2011 Vuelta a Espana, where Froome finished second on the road – a result upgraded to victory in 2019 with Juan Jose Cobo retrospectively banned for a doping offence.
It meant Froome was actually Britain’s first Grand Tour winner, his victory coming the year before Wiggins won the 2012 Tour de France.
Froome went to that Tour to support Wiggins and finished second behind his team-mate, though many believe he could have won it but for team orders.
Late in 2011 it was revealed Froome had previously suffered from the parasitic disease schistosomiasis, the discovery and treatment of which was used to explain his rapid rise.
Breakout
Froome went from super-domestique to team leader in 2013 with the first of his Tour de France wins. He crashed out of the 2014 edition, a race which began in the UK, but returned to win again in 2015, 2016, and 2017, establishing himself as the pre-eminent Grand Tour rider of the period.
Froome made it a Tour-Vuelta double in 2017 and announced he would target the Giro d’Italia-Tour double in 2018. Victory at the Giro, on the back of a stunning 80km solo breakaway on stage 19, meant he was the first man to hold all three Grand Tour jerseys at the same time since Bernard Hinault in 1983.
But Froome rode that Giro under a cloud. It was revealed that during the Vuelta the previous year a test had discovered excessive amounts of salbutamol, an asthma drug in his system.
Team Sky controversially chose not to suspend Froome while the case was resolved, and Froome was eventually cleared of an offence on the eve of the 2018 Tour, where Froome fell short of the Giro-Tour double as he finished third, with Thomas the winner.
Horror crash and decline
Froome began 2019 as favourite for the Tour and a record-equalling fifth title. But while training on his time trial bike at the Criterium du Dauphine in June, Froome struck a wall at high speed and broke his leg, elbow and ribs. He would never be the same rider again.
Froome left what was now the Ineos Grenadiers for Israel-Start Up Nation at the end of 2020 on a long-term deal, but could not return to his previous heights.
Another training crash last year effectively ended his career.
