Paris - Chris Froome does not even need his bike to win this Tour de France. He has run without it once already and on Friday he borrowed a pal’s. Yet he is still wearing the yellow jersey supremely well.
His remarkable recovery came as what had been the most beautiful battlefield in the world turned into a pit of spite.
The sun had been shining across the snow-speckled Alps but then the thunder rolled in, the rain started and suddenly the leader had to snake his wheels down a steep incline with little more grip than warm butter.
So did everyone else, of course, but he had uniquely started the third-but-last stage with a lead of nearly four minutes. All he needed was a clean run yesterday and today. No illness, no crashes, no punctures and then he would be able to wend his way into Paris tomorrow to claim an historic third Tour triumph. There were about 30 kilometres of the Albertville to Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc stage remaining when the clouds lowered and the rain began.
Other riders had already fallen by the point the cameras flicked over to the man in yellow as he tried to get round a blind right-hand bend on the long descent before the final gruelling climb. He lost his front wheel and toppled, road-rash written into his skin. There was also oncoming traffic threatening damage. But they narrowly missed him as he gathered himself up. Alongside him was team-mate Geraint Thomas, who handed his bike to the man to whom Sky’s strategy is totally dedicated.
‘I was just trying to stay safe and out of trouble but I think I just hit a white line on the road,’ said Froome.
‘I am OK, I’m lucky nothing was seriously injured. I just lost a bit of skin and I banged my knee. This is the kind of day when you feel grateful you’ve got about four minutes’ advantage. I could fall back on that a little bit.’ By the time Froome fell, the Dutch time-trial specialist Tom Dumoulin had pulled out after falling and breaking a wrist. That puts his participation in Rio in doubt, increasing Froome’s chances of a golden flourish - or two, if he wins the road race as well as the time-trial - to cap an unforgettable year.
Now that little ‘final gruelling climb’ up Mont Blanc stacks up like this. It is 1,372 metres above sea level, nearly 10 kilkometres in length with a gradient of eight per cent. At its worst, it reaches inclines of 15 per cent.
Just watching these iron-thighed cyclists pounding their way up there is almost enough to make you cry. Doing it on somebody else’s bike - one with a differently shaped chainring - must be hell squared.
But Froome did exactly that. His lead now stands at 4min 11sec over stage winner Romain Bardet of France. A little boy in glasses held a piece of paper with Bardet’s name on it not far from the centre of town, where pichets of rosé had been knocked back when the sun was still shining at lunchtime.
It was up Mont Ventoux on Bastille Day that Froome was last detached from his bike after colliding with a motorcycle. He had to run part of the way.
He must be in a heightened state of dread going into today’s penultimate trial of survival from Megeve to Morzine. The climbs are devastatingly tough and the final descent, though not the most challenging in itself, holds perils for tired legs. More pertinently, thunderstorms are forecast, placing everything into renewed doubt.
As Froome, who finished ninth on the day, said: ‘Tomorrow is going to be really hard and I am sure I will be a bit sore and stiff after today but hopefully I can rely on my team-mates for one last push.’
Should he manage that and nothing goes horribly wrong on the final day, he will have one of the finest bodies of work of any British sportsman. For 31-year-old Froome, peddling hard into the pages of history, would become the first back-to-back champion since Miguel Indurain, who won five Tours from 1991.
He is already Britain’s greatest grand tour rider. So much to celebrate and, this time, unlike in his victory years of 2013, he has not been dogged at every turn by questions of doping.
Not everyone is convinced, though. Greg LeMond, the only American to win the Tour once Lance Armstrong’s ill deeds are wiped from the records, seemed to express concern. Looking at Froome’s data, LeMond told French newspaper L’Equipe this week: ‘The great physiologist Frederick Portoleau showed that when Froome accelerates hard, his heart only shows small variations. This is troubling.
‘Some make us believe Team Sky are ahead of the best scientists, the famous marginal gains! What b*******! There are no new methodologies. That is wrong. Miracles do not exist.’
Froome, of course, is fed up with having to defend himself, insisting that his Tour victories come without asterisks. He even had physiological testing last August just so he could publish some of the data as proof of his innocence.
So here he is largely accepted as genuine, unassailed by innuendo, charging down on history. He is now racing against the heavens and no-one else.
Daily Mail