Third for @tjakestewart on stage 2️⃣ in Guangxi🥉 After the day’s breakaway was caught in sight of the line, the British rider produced a great sprint to record his best result of the season 👏 #TOG2024 🇨🇳 #YallaIPT
"I can't compete for victories anymore but I'm still very motivated to race" - Chris Froome honest about his future as final season looms
CyclingWednesday, 16 October 2024 at 10:00
As Chris Froome nears the final season of his Israel - Premier Tech contract and likely his career, the seven-time Grand Tour winner isn't quite at the same level he once was. Nevertheless, Froome insists he hasn't lost any of his love for the sport.
“I feel good, I’m looking forward to the rest of the week,” the 39-year-old tells WielerFlits from the 2024 Tour of Guangxi in China. "Discovering new cultures like this has become a big part of professional cycling, I think. You have the opportunity to travel around the world and discover places you would never normally go. I have certainly been to places this season that I never expected, or at least places where I have never raced before. Think of Rwanda, Romania and now Guangxi."
As mentioned though, the four-time Tour de France winner is no longer one of the premiere riders in the peloton. As such, he's turned into more of a mentor role at Israel - Premier-Tech, helping and advising the next generation such as Derek Gee, Matthew Riccitello and at the Tour of Guangxi, Joseph Blackmore. “I don’t really know if this is my new role,” Froome says. “I’ve always done my best to help my teammates. I want to help them win races and I enjoy doing that. Fortunately, we have that talent in the team, in the form of Joseph Blackmore. If I have to look at the future of Great Britain in racing, I think Joe has a very good chance to develop into a very big rider in the future.”
"I do feel the respect of those guys in the team. That's not exactly what I'm looking for, of course. But I definitely like working with those young riders and sharing all the experiences I've had in the trajectory of my career with them," he continues. "I don't look at results anymore, no. At the moment I mainly try to do what I can in the sport. Realistically, I can't compete for victories anymore. I am still very motivated to race. And I still have a lot of fun on the bike. I love this sport, I love being on my bike. That makes it much easier to keep doing this."
With only one season left of his Israel - Premier Tech deal though, just what does the future hold for the modern day Grand Tour legend? “Good question," he laughs. "At the end of the season we will sit down with the team and only then will we see what next year should look like for me. And then we will dive into that.”
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- I think the other side has said plenty, given comments about her reputation like what Renz said above. Perhaps this is her chance to speak up against that reputation? I have no idea but her comments seem pretty human, even if each person has their own version of the story.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Give her a team built around her with no competing leaders, like Pogacar has at UAE or Vingegaard has at Visma (seeing how Roglic left), and I wonder how Vollering would do. She’s already so good, and a team dedicated to her could make her even better.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Those injuries, an ability to manage pain and push himself, probably a load of TUEs to help him get back from an awful moment, and competing that hard without the long exercise base that was the norm - no wonder he was exhausted. We’ve now had two consecutive seasons of the second place rider having an injury that interrupts training, and it shows to what level their bodies are tuned for the insane task of winning the Tour. I certainly hope both (and their teams!) are healthy next year. It would be a first, after 4 years.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Winners seem to be like this. Win or lose, it is always on to the next thing. They don’t celebrate the big win, they don’t worry about the painful loss. They move on. It’s an amazing skill. But to be able to ride (and win) while not being able to walk? That’s a level of pain management that boggles my mind. Of course they have it, given what they put their bodies through, but it’s just crazy.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Poor Demi. But she behaves the same way when riding for the national team. Bring me my tiny violin.Renz24-11-2024
- good pointsmij24-11-2024
- Yes, please tell us based on your superior expertise about why JVs training and race schedule is wrong 🧐Crashjames24-11-2024
- I'd like to hear what the other side has to say.mij24-11-2024
- Rules are very different from country to country and evolve with time. At one point I couldn’t even give my son my nationality because being unmarried, you’d have to register at least 3 months before the birth, a time when many people know neither the name or sex, and actually, no-one even knows if the birth will take place. In England there is now a kid with the wrong sex on his birth certificate as mistakes (even if by an administration) can no longer be corrected. I just had a 3rd child, we discovered a bump on his head at 2 weeks that wasn’t there 24h before, we ended up at the police accused of child abuse and about to have him taken from us due to staff incompetence and inexperience. Luckily a pediatric neurosurgeon has now confirmed this is not so uncommon after natural childbirth without instruments but most medical employees aren’t informed of it so automatically accuse parents of negligence/lying whatever. We discovered an association that already helped over 1000 wrongly accused couples (just those who found the association in just one country). I almost got arrested in one country for forgery after trying to convert my driver’s license as they thought I must have tampered the dates to get it aged 17 which isn’t possible for them. I can’t access half official services because the online forms are not set up to accept foreign phone number as data but a number is obligatory. That’s just a quick start, anyone who’s ever had to move internationally will confirm, there’s very little that’s not done differently elsewhere than “at home” The world is full of bureaucratic shit destroying society.Mistermaumau23-11-2024
- Bruyneel is not a person you take honesty or moral advice from.Sweep23-11-2024