Will Chris Froome be in this years’ Tour?

Before even proceeding to answer the question, the better question would be: “Will the Tour de France even start?”

With plenty of pro races being cancelled, there is still a chance that the Tour will not go through this 29th of August because of the Covid-19 pandemic. But a closer look is not what it seems. It’s just that because of the compressed racing season, which was supposed to start March, races overlapped. For example, two races in France have been cancelled last week because they were afraid that there would be no spectators or TV coverage since their date fall within the Tour.

Not only are races being cancelled but some teams have even declined in the last minute from joining a race because areas near the racing routes are now experiencing a second wave. There are even talks of the Tour getting postponed again but lets just keep our collective fingers crossed, maybe we can distort the reality field.

As of today, the most talked about topic in pro cycling after the pandemic is the issue of a potential 3-pronged attack of Team Ineos. If this was the LA Lakers, the dream trio of Lebron, Anthony Davis and Kahwi Leonard would be hard to beat. In cycling, when a team has three of the last 5 winners, it would be a disaster. The Ineos three- Froome, Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal are potentially what it is.

In basketball, the champion is the team and the players are members of the champion team. In cycling, the winning rider is the champion and there is also a less meaningful category of, “team champion”. In other words, three riders from the team will potentially try to win the Yellow Jersey. And that’s where the problem lie.

Three leaders will mean only 5 domestiques compared to a team with a singular leader with 7 domestiques.

At 35yo and coming off an almost career ending injury, Froome, the 7-time Grand Tour winner, is the most dispensable. More importantly, Ineos has announced that the team won’t be bringing back next year and Froome, also announced that he has signed a multi-year deal to ride for a Israel Start Up Nation (ISUN) next year.

Usually in cycling, if a rider signs for another team, hell say so after the Tour de France. Its highly unusual when a rider says hell be leaving “before” the Tour. For Ineos, its like, why give this rider an opportunity when he’s leaving? Why not give it to rider who’s going to be with the team?

And that’s the problem that Team Ineos is facing- a problem of excess. So if I am Team Ineos, I would not bring Froome to the Tour. He can go to the Giro d’Italia or the Vuelta a Espana, but not the Tour.

However, the fan in me says that Froome should ride the Tour. It would be disrespectful for the team to leave him high and dry after what he had done.

Hopefully, Froome will ride and win. I’d like to see faces of team Ineos when he finally does.