Froome setting sights on Rio and more Tour glory

No sooner had Chris Froome wrapped up a third Tour de France after three weeks on the road covering 3,500km, than his thoughts turned to Olympic gold.

They controlled the race from the start, reducing the British rider’s rivals to also-rans as Froome joined American Greg LeMond, Frenchman Louison Bobet and Belgian Philippe Thys as a three-time Tour victor.

The race’s 200km route means that Froome, 31, and his fellow Sky teammates will ride through Kingston town centre before crossing Hampton Court Bridge into Surrey.

The white jersey, for the best young rider, was awarded to Britain’s Adam Yates after he finished fourth in the overall standings.

Froome himself described it as “a climber s Tour” but the man widely lauded as the best climber in the world and expected to push him to his limits, frustrated with his timidity.

After four exciting days of racing in the Alps, Chris Froome emerged victorious in Paris for the third win of his career.

While other big riders of his generation like Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali have all three Grand Tours – the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the Spanish Vuelta – Froome plans to keep his focus on the Tour.

In the 12th stage ending on Mont Ventoux, he crashed when he was involved in an incident with a TV motorbike and even ran up the road after his bike was broken.

He cycled with Chris Froome in Team Sky, helping Chris go faster by cycling in front of him and even gave him his bike when Froome’s broke after a fall.

It earned Froome sympathy from the crowd, as did his crash on the penultimate stage, which left him with a bloodied knee.

He was also second in the race in 2014.

Froome celebrates victory with his family. “I’ve done absolutely everything I can to win this race, on flats, descents, time trials, I’ve done everything I can”.

“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.

The British cyclist, who won the Tour in 2013 and past year, was crowned the champion again after yesterday’s largely processional ride from Chantilly to the Champs Elysees in Paris.

He said: “We are going to have to see how things go out in Rio and how I am feeling coming out of that, but it’s potentially on the cards”.

“With the look of the team we’ve got, the inclusion of Steve Cummings [who was added when Pete Kennaugh pulled out because of poor form], we can be competitive and to have a result there would be phenomenal”.

French soldiers patrol at Louvre museum and the Pyramid prior to the twenty-first stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 113 kilometers (70.2 miles) with start in Chantilly and finish in Paris, France, Sunday, July 24, 2016.

Not since 1995 has a rider won successive Tour titles – excluding the expunged wins of Lance Armstrong – when Indurain made it five in a row.