Froome wins the 100th Tour de France
PARIS - Chris Froome won the 100th Tour de France on Sunday and immediately vowed that his victory wouldn't be stripped for doping as Lance Armstrong's were.
PARIS - Chris Froome won the 100th Tour de France on Sunday and immediately vowed that his victory wouldn't be stripped for doping as Lance Armstrong's were.
"This is one yellow jersey that will stand the test of time," said the British rider, who dominated rivals over three weeks on the road and adroitly dealt with doping suspicions off it.
Exceptionally, the 100th Tour treated itself to a nighttime finish on the Champs-Elysees. The famous avenue and the Arc de Triomphe at the top of it were bathed in yellow light - emphasizing the canary yellow of Froome's famous jersey.
In two years, Britain has had two winners: Bradley Wiggins in 2012 and now Froome, a cooler, calmer, more understated but no less determined character than his Sky teammate.
Froome rode into Paris in style: Riders pedaled up to him to offer congratulations; he sipped from a flute of champagne; a Tour organizer stuck an arm from his car window to shake Froome's hand. He dedicated his victory to his late mother, Jane, who died in 2008.
"Without her encouragement to follow my dreams, I would probably be at home watching on TV," he said.
Froome took the race lead on Stage 8 in the Pyrenees, never relinquished it, and vigorously fended off rivals whose concerted challenges turned this Tour into a thriller. Froome and his Sky teammates linked arms as they rode for the line.
"This is a beautiful country with the finest annual sporting event on the planet. To win the 100th edition is an honor beyond any I've dreamed," he said.
Five-time winners Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Indurain joined Froome on the podium. Missing, of course, was Armstrong. Stripping the serial doper of his seven wins tore a hole in the Tour's roll of honor as large as that left by World War II, when the race didn't take place from 1940 to 1946.
None of the 100th edition's podium finishers - Froome, Nairo Quintana, and Joaquim Rodriguez - has ever failed a drug test or been directly implicated in any of cycling's litany of doping scandals.