Chris Froome complements Jumbo-Visma: "There are definitely reflections of Team Sky"

Jumbo-Visma are currently by far the strongest team in the peloton when it comes to the Grand Tours and although they use different methods, they bring back memories of the Team Sky domination in the 2010's. Chris Froome, who headlined that stint, definitely agrees.

"I am still hesitant in saying the top guys are going much faster than the top guys in the past because there are guys who were at the top in the past and they are still at the top now. Geraint Thomas is an example," Froome told GCN.

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However the difference is not so much in the difference at the very top of the climbing game, the Briton instead believes that the sheer number of riders capable of racing at an incredibly high level has exponencially rised over the past few year. "Just as an example, just pulling numbers out of a hat here, riding at 6.5w/kg for 20 minutes deep into a Tour de France stage, we’d probably find 5-10 years ago there’d probably be less than ten guys left. Now there are probably 30 guys left able to do that after five hours of racing in a stage of the Tour de France."

That has led to riders who have performed in the last decade to struggle to keep up nowadays, or even not be capable of taking victories even if their level is superior. This is a combination of many things, but nutrition and the ever-developing training methods seem to play a major role. "It’s super interesting watching the dynamic between the younger guys now."

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And then at the very top there is Jumbo-Visma who have won all Grand Tours this year, and completed the whole podium at the Vuelta a Espana. "It is especially very impressive seeing what Jumbo-Visma have been able to achieve, I mean there are definitely reflections of Team Sky... It seems like they have got a winning recipe now and they are definitely doing things better than every other team out there by the looks of it.""

"And it is not just about one rider being so successful, but it’s coming through guys who you would consider super-domestiques winning Grand Tours now, that’s definitely to me evidence of something they are doing right." Whilst Froome is no longer part of this battle, his former INEOS Grenadiers team is quite far from the top level of Jumbo and UAE Team Emirates.

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The Briton believes that the divide in the peloton is also widely due to the attention to details even within World Tour teams themselves. "There’s massive disparity in the peloton. I don’t think it’s quite so apparent to people on the outside, but I think it’s very evident from being on the inside and speaking to other riders and having changed teams myself, that there is a very very big difference between teams."

"I think some teams have maybe not invested quite as much in research and development, whether that’s across nutrition, equipment, clothing, training, everything else, as Visma have. In my opinion, I think they have gone above and beyond in that regard and I think it is showing in their riding, in their results."

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