Chris Froome's crash at the Giro is emblematic of the pressure he's under
As pictures emerged of Team Sky's talisman picking himself up off the floor, covered in road rash with his training kit in tatters, you could feel the weight of physical pressure to perform to such a high standard so early in the season pile on top of the existing mental pressure of an unresolved dope test. The latter exists, no matter how much Froome and his team downplay the extent of the stress he's feeling.
Discussion has been rife ever since late last year when Chris Froome returned an adverse analytical finding for double the allowed level of salbutamol, but chatter over his eligibility to race has intensified ever since his team announced he would contest the 101st Giro d'Italia.
An alleged multi-million pound attendance fee probably played a part in their decision for the legendary Grand Tourer to take to the start line in Israel, but nevertheless, the improbable prospect of a Tour/Vuelta/Giro hat-trick must have been an enticing if slightly mad idea. Especially given the quandary of what could happen to these and any future results should the UCI rule against Team Sky's appeal of the AAF.
There's a good chance he used his winter training camp in South Africa as an opportunity to both replicate the conditions at the Vuelta that led to the AAF to prove his innocence, and get his fitness to a place it'd never been this early in the year. Where riding to win the Giro was a distinct possibility.
The first hurdle in Froome's gallop towards a maiden Giro title being a technical time trial wouldn't have been ideal. Usually, bigger built general classification contenders will relish gaining time over their smaller, nimbler counter parts on a long flat individual time trial, but when the parcours revealed itself to be as rolling and bendy as the 9.7km around west Jerusalem was, Froome must've hoped just to get round in a decent time in relation to Tom Dumoulin.
As current world champion in both the team and individual time trials, Dumoulin was the bookie's second favourite to in-form Rohan Dennis to take the stage win and wear the first maglia rosa of the race.
Unlike Simon Yates, Domenico Pozzovivo and Thibaut Pinot - who went into the ITT knowing they had to limit their loses in a discipline that doesn't favour them - Froome knew he had to aim to equal or beat the time set by the Sunweb rider: both because he has the capability to and also because he isn't used to being on the back foot to a rival as adept as Dumoulin so early in a Grand Tour.
From the road side fan footage that emerged of the recon after the stage was over, Froome was braking into a tight right-hand bend and unexpectedly met with the tarmac after slipping on the white painted road markings. Not over-zealously, but certainly not carefully. He's just so lanky and ugly on a bike that the positioning of his weight on the frame was all wrong. He's definitely nowhere near as good a bike handler as most of his GC rivals.
Having an ITT so early in the Giro may have contributed to the crash also - the number of crashes among the favourites in last year's soaking wet Tour de France opening ITT in Dusseldorf shows it can all be over before it's even started.
It's evidenced from previous years at the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana that Froome needs time to ride himself into form, just in time for the final week of key mountain stages and time trial. Here, though, he's had to be ready right from the starting gun, straight into a stage where significant time lost is time you won't be able to recoup for at least five days of racing until the peloton arrives on Sardinia, or even later on mainland Italy. Froome doesn't like playing catch-up, especially when it's against a competitor so similar to himself.
Froome was reportedly OK after his tumble, but it was obvious that he wasn't OK from his intermediate split at 5km: he was 39th. He continued to lose time and look uncomfortable on the bike, and as he headed up towards the line, the ramifications of his encounter with the asphalt were made as clear as the Jerusalem weather. Not only was he way down on Dumoulin, he'd even slipped below climbers with the most modest of time trialing ability.
Yates, the highest ranked of the climbers targeting GC on the stage, was 17 seconds up on Froome. That would be an almost insignificant gap to make up over the course of a few mountain stages or even the time trial course that arrives on stage 16, but to lose that time over a stage as short as this was stark. It's a stark reminder of Froome's unfamiliarity with the Giro, and also the unbelievable amount of extra pressure on his shoulders. Froome is one of the few riders who is under more pressure if he's not in the leader's jersey, purely because of the level of expectation that comes with his name.
Not only does he have to deal with the incessant barrage of questions from the press about his AAF - which must affect him, even if it's only a small amount - he now has to navigate where and when to attack on a course that he has very little experience of. For the first time in his Grand Tour career as leader, he has to attack from a position of weakness.
The two previous occasions Froome was off the pace and injured were stage five of the 2014 Tour de France and stage 11 of the 2015 Vuelta Espana, and both times he quit.
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| Chris Froome bears the scars of a crash in his course recon Photo credit: eurosport.co.uk |
An alleged multi-million pound attendance fee probably played a part in their decision for the legendary Grand Tourer to take to the start line in Israel, but nevertheless, the improbable prospect of a Tour/Vuelta/Giro hat-trick must have been an enticing if slightly mad idea. Especially given the quandary of what could happen to these and any future results should the UCI rule against Team Sky's appeal of the AAF.
There's a good chance he used his winter training camp in South Africa as an opportunity to both replicate the conditions at the Vuelta that led to the AAF to prove his innocence, and get his fitness to a place it'd never been this early in the year. Where riding to win the Giro was a distinct possibility.
The first hurdle in Froome's gallop towards a maiden Giro title being a technical time trial wouldn't have been ideal. Usually, bigger built general classification contenders will relish gaining time over their smaller, nimbler counter parts on a long flat individual time trial, but when the parcours revealed itself to be as rolling and bendy as the 9.7km around west Jerusalem was, Froome must've hoped just to get round in a decent time in relation to Tom Dumoulin.
As current world champion in both the team and individual time trials, Dumoulin was the bookie's second favourite to in-form Rohan Dennis to take the stage win and wear the first maglia rosa of the race.
Unlike Simon Yates, Domenico Pozzovivo and Thibaut Pinot - who went into the ITT knowing they had to limit their loses in a discipline that doesn't favour them - Froome knew he had to aim to equal or beat the time set by the Sunweb rider: both because he has the capability to and also because he isn't used to being on the back foot to a rival as adept as Dumoulin so early in a Grand Tour.
From the road side fan footage that emerged of the recon after the stage was over, Froome was braking into a tight right-hand bend and unexpectedly met with the tarmac after slipping on the white painted road markings. Not over-zealously, but certainly not carefully. He's just so lanky and ugly on a bike that the positioning of his weight on the frame was all wrong. He's definitely nowhere near as good a bike handler as most of his GC rivals.
Having an ITT so early in the Giro may have contributed to the crash also - the number of crashes among the favourites in last year's soaking wet Tour de France opening ITT in Dusseldorf shows it can all be over before it's even started.
It's evidenced from previous years at the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana that Froome needs time to ride himself into form, just in time for the final week of key mountain stages and time trial. Here, though, he's had to be ready right from the starting gun, straight into a stage where significant time lost is time you won't be able to recoup for at least five days of racing until the peloton arrives on Sardinia, or even later on mainland Italy. Froome doesn't like playing catch-up, especially when it's against a competitor so similar to himself.
Froome was reportedly OK after his tumble, but it was obvious that he wasn't OK from his intermediate split at 5km: he was 39th. He continued to lose time and look uncomfortable on the bike, and as he headed up towards the line, the ramifications of his encounter with the asphalt were made as clear as the Jerusalem weather. Not only was he way down on Dumoulin, he'd even slipped below climbers with the most modest of time trialing ability.
Yates, the highest ranked of the climbers targeting GC on the stage, was 17 seconds up on Froome. That would be an almost insignificant gap to make up over the course of a few mountain stages or even the time trial course that arrives on stage 16, but to lose that time over a stage as short as this was stark. It's a stark reminder of Froome's unfamiliarity with the Giro, and also the unbelievable amount of extra pressure on his shoulders. Froome is one of the few riders who is under more pressure if he's not in the leader's jersey, purely because of the level of expectation that comes with his name.
Not only does he have to deal with the incessant barrage of questions from the press about his AAF - which must affect him, even if it's only a small amount - he now has to navigate where and when to attack on a course that he has very little experience of. For the first time in his Grand Tour career as leader, he has to attack from a position of weakness.
The two previous occasions Froome was off the pace and injured were stage five of the 2014 Tour de France and stage 11 of the 2015 Vuelta Espana, and both times he quit.
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