After two years of calls for Chris Froome's physiological data to be made public, Team Sky have said they may be prepared to release a limited amount of information, after the constant speculation about the Tour de France leader's performance at the stage finish at La Pierre Saint-Martin last Tuesday. Sir Dave Brailsford faced further questions from French television on Sunday evening, and was confronted with an estimated power-weight figure for Froome which he had no option but to dismiss.
Brailsford said Sky may release figures on Tuesday, the race’s rest day. “I think we’ll have a look at it tonight and for the rest day we might just release an average cadence or the average power,” the head of Team Sky said. The move was welcomed by Froome, who said after the stage, “the power data is obviously the intellectual property of the team and if they’re happy to give that out then of course I support that, no problems.”
Brailsford and Sky have always said they are unwilling to give up the data, because different experts will arrive at different conclusions from the figures. “You’ve got to bear in mind that there are issues like different power meters, oval rings against round rings. You’ve got to understand all of these things before you start interpreting the numbers that you’ve got.” Asked about Froome’s weight by French television on Sunday, Brailsford had said he did not know, but on Monday his team leader said it fluctuates between 67kg and 68kg.
The man himself has spoken about the speculation surrounding him at this year’s Tour. “I’ve got to admit it is frustrating to an extent that if you look at the last five Grand Tours that have been won by different teams, different riders, there hasn’t been the same kind of outcry for power data and numbers and all the rest of it,” Froome said.
“Unless I’m missing something. I didn’t see the same kind of level of questioning. Of course I don’t really understand why now it seems to be such a hot topic in this year’s Tour de France, given that, OK, I won one mountain-top finish by 59 seconds. It just seems strange to me.”
Among those to appeal for Froome’s data to be made public is the anti-doping campaigner Antoine Vayer, who was behind a video released early last week that claimed to have power, cadence and heartrate data for Froome’s climb to Mont Ventoux in the 2013 Tour which Vayer told the Guardian had been leaked to him.
One key fact for Team Sky is that they go into the main Alpine stages a man down after Peter Kennaugh abandoned through illness but it could have been much worse after Geraint Thomas left the road at high speed on the descent to the finish, smashing the back of his head against a lamp-post as he flew through the air after colliding with the French rider, Warren Barguil. It was a sickening impact but the Welshman is known as a hard man and was swiftly back in the saddle and chasing with no greater loss than 38sec in the standings and a pair of favourite sunglasses.
Thomas was lying fourth in the string of 12 riders who were close to the top of the descent from the Col de Manse as they took the tight right-hander where the stage winner, Rubén Plaza, and the points leader, Peter Sagan, had come close to coming to grief 20 minutes earlier. Barguil, who was placed further back in the line, lost control of his bike and careered into the Welshman from behind, at higher speed, knocking Thomas into the lamp-post – which broke his fall to some extent – after which the Sky rider slid 10-12ft down the near-vertical slope below the road. "We were just coming into a tight right – everyone was braking pretty hard and about to take it and all of a sudden Barguil just came straight into me from the side and knocked me flying into a lamp-post and that was it," he recalled. "I'm OK, hit my head on the lamp-post but I'm all right, the doctor will ask me a few questions, my name and stuff, I'll tell him I'm Chris Froome. Luckily there was a barrier thing and it stopped me from falling."
Thomas retained his sixth place overall going into the rest day, while Froome negotiated the descents with the loss of only 28 seconds to Vincenzo Nibali, who remains almost eight minutes back. Sagan will remember the descent as well. For the third day running the points leader was part of the day’s main escape, but he finished second again, and is showing the same ability as last year to miss out on victory on a near-daily basis in a plethora of different ways.
Here the Slovak was unable to cover the vital move on the Manse when Plaza sprang clear from an initial selection of nine. Sagan was forced to perform much of the chasing on the uphill before surging clear once the road headed downhill to perform an acrobatic descent of the Manse, which made spectacular if nerve-rending viewing. He came close to grief on a couple of bends, and halved Plaza’s advantage, but was left pondering what might have been. As, no doubt was Thomas.
(Guardian service)
