Chris Froome
Christopher Clive Froome is a British professional road racing cyclist who most recently rode for UCI ProTeam Israel-Premier Tech. He has won seven Grand Tours: four editions of the Tour de France, one Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España twice. He has also won several other stage races, and the Vélo d'Or three times. Froome has also won two Olympic bronze medals in road time trials, in 2012 and 2016, and took bronze in the 2017 World Championships.
Froome was born in Kenya to parents of British origin and grew up there and in South Africa. Since 2011 he has been a resident of Monaco. In 2007, at the age of 22, Froome turned professional with Team Konica Minolta in South Africa. In 2008, he joined the team. The same year he moved to Italy and started to ride under a British licence after initially representing Kenya. In 2010, he moved to and quickly became one of the team's key cyclists. Froome made his breakthrough as a Grand Tour contender during the 2011 Vuelta a España where he finished second overall, later promoted to first, retrospectively becoming the first British cyclist to win a Grand Tour cycling event. At the 2012 Tour de France, riding as a super-domestique for Bradley Wiggins, Froome won stage seven and finished second overall, behind Wiggins.
His first recognised multi-stage race win came in 2013, in the Tour of Oman, followed by wins in the Critérium International, the Tour de Romandie, the Critérium du Dauphiné, and the Tour de France. In the 2014 Tour de France, he retired after multiple crashes. In 2015, he won his second Critérium du Dauphiné and his second Tour de France. He won a third Tour de France in 2016 and became the first man since Miguel Induráin in 1995 to successfully defend his title. He won his fourth Tour de France in 2017, followed by successive wins at the 2017 Vuelta a España and the 2018 Giro d'Italia, his first victories in both races. These achievements made him the first cyclist to win the Tour–Vuelta double since the Vuelta was moved to September, the first rider to achieve any Grand Tour double in nearly a decade, and the first to hold all three Grand Tour winners' jerseys at the same time since Bernard Hinault in 1983.
Throughout his career Froome has faced a series of allegations that he exploited a loophole in cycling's anti-doping regulations to use performance-enhancing drugs and in 2023 his former coach was banned for violating anti-doping rules and tampering with anti-doping investigations. In 2019 a serious training crash before the Critérium du Dauphiné halted Froome's career, after he broke numerous bones including his pelvis, femur and four ribs. Although he managed to recover following surgery to return to the peloton in 2020, he struggled to regain his former form. He left Ineos Grenadiers at the end of 2020 to join Israel Start-Up Nation but his form struggles continued through the 2021 season, with Froome failing to contend seriously in stage races since his accident. His post-accident struggles drew comparisons with former grand tour contender and three-time podium winner Joseba Beloki who infamously crashed out of the 2003 Tour de France while in contention for the victory, and never recovered his former grand tour form. His most notable Grand Tour accomplishment post-accident was a 3rd-place finish on the Alpe d'Huez stage of the 2022 Tour de France. Froome was in the top 30 overall on general classification when forced to pull out by illness.
Early life and amateur career
Froome was born on 20 May 1985 in Nairobi, Kenya, the youngest of three boys to mother Jane and English father Clive, a former field hockey player who represented England at under-19 level. His mother was born and raised in Kenya, her parents having emigrated from Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England, to Kenya to run a crop farm. Whilst growing up his parents maintained British customs at home with Sunday roast dinners and Beatles songs which contributed to his desire to represent Great Britain in cycling. In Kenya he would sell avocados and discarded bike parts.Froome's two older brothers, Jonathan and Jeremy, went to Rugby School in Warwickshire, England. When Froome was 13, his mother took him to his first organised bike race, a charity race that he won despite being knocked from his bike by his mother during the race who was driving alongside. There he met professional cyclist David Kinjah, who became Froome's mentor and training partner. Initially Kinjah misjudged Froome's attitude, fearing he lacked the "work ethic to keep pace with more experienced riders of the group" His mother was upset with his cycling, often driving out ahead, attempting to drive him back home.
After finishing primary school at the Banda School in Nairobi, Froome moved to South Africa with his father as a 14-year-old to attend St. Andrew's School, a publicly funded school in Bloemfontein and St John's College, a boarding independent school in Johannesburg. Froome attended St John's alongside South African-born Scott Spedding, who went on to a professional rugby union career including playing internationally for France. Whilst in South Africa he was the school's cycling captain and kept in contact with Kinjah. He then studied economics for two years at the University of Johannesburg. In South Africa Froome started to participate in road cycling. On one of his school holidays, his home club gifted him with a second-hand yellow jersey. Being unaware of the Tour de France, he failed to see the significance.
It was not until he was 22 that he turned professional. Froome started road racing in South Africa, specialising as a climber. Froome competed for Kenya in the road time trial and the road race at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, where he finished 17th and 25th respectively, catching the attention of future Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford: "The performance he did, on the equipment he was on, that takes some doing ... We always thought he was a bit of a diamond in the rough, who had a huge potential."
While representing Kenya at the 2006 Road World Championships in the under-23 category in Salzburg, Austria, Froome crashed into an official just after the start of the time trial, causing both men to fall, although neither was injured He remounted and finished in 36th place. Froome's appearance at the World Championships came about after he impersonated Kenyan cycling federation president Julius Mwangi by using Mwangi's email account to enter himself into the championships, in order to add some European racing experience to his CV and boost his chances of obtaining a contract with a professional team.
Professional career
2007–2010: early years
Froome turned professional in 2007, aged 22, with the South African team, Konica Minolta, withdrawing from university two years into his degree in economics. He competed from April to September in the U23 Nations Cup for the Union Cycliste Internationale's World Cycling Centre team based in Aigle, Switzerland. In May he rode his first stage race, the Giro delle Regioni, winning stage five, riding for WCC. In late-May he won stage six of the Tour of Japan, attacking from a breakaway in the fourteen-lap circuit in Shuzenji. In June he competed at the "B" world championships in Cape Town, placing second to China's Haijun Ma in the time trial.In July, he claimed a bronze medal in the road race at the All-Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria. On 26 September, he placed forty-first in the under-23 time trial at the world championships in Stuttgart, three minutes and thirty seconds behind the gold medalist, Lars Boom of the Netherlands. His performances in 2007 attracted the attention of British Cycling coach, Rod Ellingworth, who believed Froome had potential. Froome said: "Although I was riding under the Kenyan flag I made it clear that I had always carried a British passport and felt British. It was then we talked about racing under the Union Flag, and we stayed in touch."
File:Chris Froome Tour De France 2008.jpg|thumb|Froome on the 2008 Tour de France's final Champs-Élysées stage in Paris, riding in his first season for
Froome was introduced to the South African-backed, second-tier UCI Professional Continental team,, by South African Robbie Hunter, signing with them for the 2008 season. In March he finished second overall in the Giro del Capo in South Africa, one minute and forty-one seconds behind his teammate, Christian Pfannberger. Over March and April, he rode the Critérium International, Gent–Wevelgem and the Ardennes classics. In May 2008, Froome switched from a Kenyan licence to a British licence, to have a chance of riding in the 2008 Summer Olympics, where Kenya did not qualify. He made his Grand Tour debut when he was named in 's squad for the Tour de France – becoming the first participant born in Kenya, in which he finished 84th overall and 11th among the young rider classification. In October, Froome finished fourth overall in the Herald Sun Tour in Victoria, Australia.
Froome claimed his next professional win in March 2009, with the second stage of the Giro del Capo in Durbanville, South Africa, attacking a ten-strong breakaway with and finishing four minutes ahead. He then participated in the Giro d'Italia, in which he came 36th overall, and seventh young rider classification. In July he won a minor one day race, Anatomic Jock Race, in Barberton South Africa. In September 2009, it was announced that he was to join British cycling team,, for the 2010 season.
Froome rode the 2010 Giro d'Italia. On stage nineteen, he was suffering with a knee injury and on the Mortirolo Pass he was seen holding on to a police motorbike. He had been dropped by the gruppetto, and intended to reach the feed zone and retire from the race. For holding on to the motorbike he was disqualified from the race. During his first season with Sky, his best result was at the Tour du Haut Var, where he finished ninth in the overall standings. He also finished second at the 2010 national time trial championships. In October he represented England at the Commonwealth Games, in Delhi, coming fifth in the time trial, two minutes and twenty seconds behind the winner, Scotland's David Millar.