Chapeau M. Froome

Walking Tuesday: 3.9km

Swimming Tuesday: 1.25km

Walking Wednesday: 3.8km

Walking Thursday: 3.9km

Walking Friday: 3.8km

Swimming Friday: 1.15km

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Maybe it is an omen, or at least a pattern;

2013 and we saw Chris Froome in yellow on the last Breton stage at St. Nicholas de Redon - two weeks later he won Le Tour in Paris

2015 and we saw Chris Froome in yellow on the last Breton stage at Plumelec - 

Today two weeks later, he's just won Le Tour for the second time in Paris

(In 2014 the tour didn't come to Brittany, Chris Froome crashed out on stage 5 with a broken wrist).

It's a magnificent achievement to win the Tour de France once, a truly remarkable achievement to win it twice. Yet this victory and the performance of Sky has produced, admittedly from a tiny minority of spectators on the French stages, a well documented hate campaign, spitting at the yellow jersey wearer being one of the milder reactions. The reaction of some parts of the French press has been one of continual innuendo in the face of a complete lack of any sort of evidence.

I've no doubt that if the Daily Mail had a cycling correspondent this reaction would be put down to three things:

1 He's not French

2 He's successful 

3 He's not even got a French sounding name

The truth is, as always, more complicated. Hugh Schofield, the BBC's long-standing Paris correspondent, put his finger on things I thought when he said on a live radio item this morning that Froome didn't ride with panache (it's funny that in the English language we have to use French words for personality traits, think of panache, élan, sang-froid and many other similar words). Often I feel the French have a romantic love of doing things the "right" way, often not the same as the best way; hence their grudging admiration and, at the same time, instinctive distrust of German or British 

approaches to business, banking ....... and cycling.

Sir Dave Brailsford brought an industrial management approach first to GB cycling and then to Team Sky, famously he used a "Team for small improvements" with GB cycling to find the multiple tiny differences that collectively made GB cyclists the most successful team at the 2008 and 2012,Olympics. Sky is the best organised and most professional UCI team and their detailed approach has borne fruit.

In 2012 the French cycling team, after another defeat at the velodrome, claimed that team GB had an unfair advantage - "something is illegal with their wheels". No facts, evidence or backup but a strong conviction in the face of reality that something wasn't right. 2015, a British rider riding without the beloved panache, performing at a level above his competitors, no Frenchman in sight of the podium and riding at the lead of a British team. It's clear, he must kbe cheating and/or doping. 

The odd thing is that French cycling fans have great respect for "Christopher Froooome" as RTL's radio cycling commentary invariably describes him. I felt his behaviour and speech after winning showed him to be thoughtful and mature.

Just the French press to win over then - and that could take a bit longer.