Chris Froome Wins First Vuelta And Historic Fifth Grand Tour

Chris Froome Wins First Vuelta And Historic Fifth Grand Tour
08:26, 11 Sep 2017

The business is now, finally, after six long years, finished.

Late on a warm and sunny evening in Spain, we saw what may well be the high point of one of cycling’ great careers and culmination of another. As Chris Froome completed his Tour and Vuelta double, becoming the first rider to do since the Vuelta changed dates to September in 1995, and the first to do so since Bernard Hinault in 1978, the winner of all three Grand Tours and arguably the greatest climber and stage racer of this generation, Alberto Contador, hung up his race shoes.

It has been a magnificent three weeks and a thrilling journey for fans who may have felt underwhelmed by the Tour de France in the summer, and also for two men who have left their mark on the history of this three-week Tour in the last decade.

Froome, now the winner of five Grand Tours, has been through a particularly arduous journey to complete his ‘unfinished’ business, often finding that the sharp differences between racing here and the Tour, sometimes combined with other factors, including tactical miscalculations, had gotten the better of him.

Many will argue that he should have had this title six years ago, having stayed with Bradley Wiggins on the Alto de l’Angliru until he cracked under the attack of Juan Jose Cobo. Froome was eventually allowed to chase to try and drag him down, eventually, but he was too late by the slim margin of 13 seconds.

In 2014, he was unable to overcome a peak form Alberto Contador, and the year after that Nairo Quintana’s bold and daring move to Aramon-Formigal the next year, but at the beginning of this year the Red Jersey has been at the forefront of his and Team Sky’s thinking.  A first half of the year which was very light on racedays allowed him to grow into a Tour which did not have some of the more explosive terrain of previous editions, whilst the presence of the rejuvenated Gianni Moscon, who looks to have a remarkable future after a brilliant first grand Tour, and an on form Wout Poels, provided him with more cover than in previous years.

But in the end, one man has to ride to victory and Froome has held the yellow or red jersey in 32 of the 72 days between the wet start of the prologue in Dusseldorf and tonight’s largely processional stage into the Spanish capital. Tonight he equalled Eddy Merckx's record of days spent in the lead of a Grand Tour, set in 1970, a testament to his sheer consistency and doggedness.

Contador, fresh from a fairytale farewell yesterday, will leave the world of bike race with memories good and bad. Whilst one cannot forget his two-year ban for clenbuterol, nor the near farcical circumstances that surrounded the 585 day battle or the finding of the Basque Government, it would be a disservice to the Spaniard to forget that he was the youngest and quickest of the six riders to have won all three of the Grand Tours, completing the feat in the space of 15 months at the tender age of 25 years.

Determined to leave everything on the road in his final race, he launched attacks on 11 of the race’s 21 stages including the Angliru and his overall position is all the more creditable given that he suffered a bout of sickness on the race’s third stage to Andorra, where he lost any conceivable chance of the Red Jersey.

Perhaps, however, that gave him a level of freedom which allowed him to ride through Spain will brilliant abandon, thrilling fans on the roadside and around the world day after day and giving a ‘greatest hits’ show before he departed, and the race – and cycling – has been all the better for his presence.  His reward was two laps of the packed streets of Madrid, both times cheered by his adoring countrymen.

The final stage was won by Mateo Trentin of Quick-Step, making it a fourth stage win for him, but the late efforts of Frome to be involved with the sprint finish meant that he did not take the points jersey by the slender margin of two points. Cannondale Drapac’s Vuelta ended with Davide Villella taking the mountains jersey, a stellar effort, whilst Astana took the team classification and three stages.

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