Chris Froome, the four-time Tour de France winner, has been surprisingly omitted from Israel Premier Tech’s eight-rider squad for this year’s race.
Froome, who has struggled to reach his former level after suffering severe injuries in a crash in June 2019, had been widely expected to start the race when it gets under way in Bilbao at the beginning of July and had recently trained with the team’s Tour de France shortlist of riders.
But a lack of results, allied to what Froome referred to as “equipment issues” when he responded to his omission, meant that the 38-year-old did not make the cut. And despite his insistence that he could again contend for the Tour, it now seems unlikely that he will ever start the French race again.
There was no mention of Froome in the press release announcing the team’s Tour lineup. Instead, Israel Premier Tech announced it will be led by the in-form Canadian climber, Michael Woods, the recent winner of the Route d’Occitanie in the French Pyrenees.
Froome, who subsequently gave a statement to Global Cycling Network, said that physically he was ready to start the Tour, but that during the buildup, he had felt unable to show what he called his “full ability at the races assigned to me, due to equipment issues.”
He added: “I respect the team’s decision and will take some time before refocusing on objectives later in the season and returning to the Tour de France in 2024.”
Froome’s best performance in the Tour, since his disastrous reconnaissance crash at the Critérium du Dauphiné, came in last year’s stage to Alpe d’Huez, when he finished third behind the stage winner, Tom Pidcock.
However, that has been the sole Grand Tour highlight of his career since leaving Team Ineos. Despite his insistence that he would eventually reach his former level, he has struggled in the biggest climbs and has been a shadow of his once-dominant former self.
Froome has an illustrious Grand Tour resume. He was winner of the Tour de France in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017, as well as the Giro d’Italia in 2018 and the Vuelta a España in 2011 and 2017, while with Team Sky and subsequently Team Ineos.
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However, those successes were also dogged by scepticism, which came to a head in the spring of 2018 when an adverse finding for salbutamol use became public knowledge, although he vehemently denied any wrongdoing and the case against him was eventually dropped by the Union Cycliste Internationale.
Although he is already talking about competing in the 2024 Tour, it is unclear if Froome will continue with his current team. On signing Froome as his most high-profile rider in late 2020, Israel Premier Tech’s team owner, Sylvan Adams, said that Froome would remain with the team “until the end of his career.”
“Chris will stay with us until his retirement,” Adams told cyclingnews.com. “The duration [of the contract]was established by Chris’s desire to race for so many more years.”
Froome’s thoughts may now turn towards other races later this season, but retirement, or at least a transition to gravel racing, a path pursued by other past Tour winners, such as Italian Vincenzo Nibali, may also be looming.