VIDEO | Chris Froome talks of Tour de France non-selection: "I was ready for the Tour"

Chris Froome was one of the riders who was a surprise to miss the Tour de France. He showed himself disappointed with it after the news came out, however he now talks of the subject with more complexity, weeks after the call was made.

"I took a bit of time off having missed out on Tour de France selection. I had been working so hard all season basically to get to that point," Froome said in a Youtube video titled 'I WAS READY FOR THE TOUR'. "It was a pretty big disappointment, a pretty big let down not making the Tour de France squad this year, I really felt as if I was on track, as if physically I was ready and hit all my goals in terms of reaching race weight."

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PREVIEW | Tour de France 2023 stage 12 - Hilly day promises more breakaway spectacle and traps for GC favourites

Israel - Premier Tech had not looked good before La Route d'Occitanie, lacking leaders and many options to go for success at the Tour were they had an automatic wildcard. In the French race Michael Woods won the overall classification - and has since won at the iconic Puy de Dôme at the Tour, with the support of the Briton who hoped to show there his form, in hopes to then try and go for a stage win in France throughout July. Things didn't go too well for him however luck wise.

"The Mont Ventoux one-day classic didn't go well for me at all. I had a bit of a mechanical, I had something get stuck in my cranks right at the foot of Ventoux. I changed bikes, got onto a spare bike and for some reason the handlebar was completely bent so it must have got knocked by something on the roof of the car, so I had to change bikes again. I mean, first of all I'm not really a great one-day rider, I've never really had a top result in a one-day race so doing a few one-day races wasn't really ideal," he says. 

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"It may affect the GC" - Tadej Pogacar wary ahead of Tour de France stage 12

After being the team's best placed rider at the Mercan'Tour Classic with a 14th spot, there was promise that he would be present. Ventoux however - after the route being cut - saw mechanicals throw him off contention, and in Occitanie he put it all out to support the Canadian win the race. "I did also do Route d'Occitanie which had one big day of climbing and it was down to that one big day of climbing that I needed to show what I'd be capable of doing in the Tour de France but unfortunately I just felt completely locked up through my lower back," he admits. 

"I could feel something wasn't right, I wasn't pushing right on the bike. Having finished the stage I asked Gary [Blem] to check things on the bike and he saw straight away that my saddle set back had slipped. I was basically too stretched on the bike and not really pushing in the right position. That was frustrating because that was my only real chance to show myself before the Tour de France," he details, further explaining why he had blamed equipment issues on his Tour absence.

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Fabio Jakobsen abandons 2023 Tour de France after multiple days of struggle

He hopes to still return to the race, however there are certainly no certainties, specially with his contract running out at the end of this year. "It felt as though I still had a lot more to give and a lot more to show, it was disappointing, but the team has chosen to go with a different approach to the Tour this year, so I have had to refocus."

"I did take a bit of a break. Mentally and physically I have been working for so long for that point and for it not to come through it felt as though I needed to shut down for a little bit, just switch off mentally and physically before getting back into things."

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Alberto Contador's former teammate, on the difficulty of what Lance Armstrong did in the Tour de France: "That's why I give so much value to what Lance did. As much as it was said, to win seven in a row..."

"This was his worst day of this Tour" - Concerns for Mathieu van der Poel after stage 11 although Alpecin-Deceuninck confident 'he will still get through'