Froome drinks beer _ not Champagne _ in final stage of Tour

The Briton’s first two titles were accompanied by tense moments with some spectators, while questions about cycling’s doping past were never far away.

Euphoric Briton Chris Froome vowed to make further headway on the overall list of Tour de France race winners after his coronation as a three-time victor was confirmed in Paris.

Australian Chloe Hosking had earlier won the women’s La Course by Tour de France, the annual curtain-rasier to the final men’s stage.

Wanting to maintain a sense of suspense until the very end of the race, they crafted a well-balanced route with many opportunities for Froome’s main rivals: Colombian climbing ace Nairo Quintana, two-time Tour victor Alberto Contador of Spain – who arrived in very good shape – and the French duo of Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet.

This year’s race was also noteworthy for Lancastrian Adam Yates, who became Britain’s first ever victor of the Tour’s white jersey – since 1975 awarded to the best rider under the age of 26. He won a fifth straight green points jersey and even halfway through the Tour when Mark Cavendish was wearing it, the Briton himself admitted he had no chance of holding onto it until Paris.

“It’s the biggest one in our sport and I hope I can be back next year and fighting for it again”.

When Froome won the Tour in 2013, one of the few occasions he looked under pressure was the stage to Saint-Amand-Montrond, when he was caught on the wrong side of a split in another severely crosswind-affected day.

All nine Team Sky riders made it to Paris in support of Chris Froome.

On Sunday, Froome’s eight Team Sky lieutenants delivered him to Paris for his third victory in four years and Sky’s fourth since 2012.

Froome celebrates victory with his family. “I think he needs another race before the Vuelta, so we will see where we are at”, Brailsford said. “I’ve done a lot in terms of offering up my physiological data and trying to be open to people as much as I can while protecting a competitive advantage at the same time”.

“It’s nice we can laugh about it now, but at the time it was pretty chaotic and pretty stressful”. But credit to the French public, the race continued.

Kristoff attacked first but Greipel, with his Lotto-Soudal lead-out train doing its job on the final approach, burst clear to make sure he did not leave this Tour empty-handed.

“This tour has obviously taken place against the backdrop of bad events in Nice and we pay our respect again to those who lost their lives”, Froome said of the recent incident in which a man killed 84 people when he drove a truck through a Bastille Day crowd on the seafront at the Riviera city. “All day my team-mates protected me, right to the end of the stage”.

We saw it again three days later with his surprise attack alongside Peter Sagan as crosswinds smashed the race to pieces on the road to Montpellier.

Froome has vowed he will return to France to try for another win and perhaps take part in the prestigious event five or six more times.

Ahead of him are five-times champions Miguel Indurain of Spain, Belgian great Eddy Merckx and Frenchmen Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil.

Froome built his success on an impressively strong Team Sky, arguably the best assembled in recent Tour history, being able to rely on domestique de luxe Wouter Poels in the mountains.

Greipel had been yet earn a victory at this year’s edition of the race, leaving his personal record of winning at least once in every Grand Tour he has started since 2008 at risk.