Date: Sunday, 20 December. Venue: SSE Arena, Belfast. Time: 18:50-21:00 GMT. Coverage: BBC A single, Radio five live, BBC Sport internet site.
Preview show: BBC Two, Tuesday, 15 December 22:35-23:35 GMT
“He has that true fight to get every thing out and give every thing to the finish line” – team-mate Geraint Thomas on cyclist Chris Froome.
Froome, 30, is the latest contender to be profiled in the run-up to the BBC Sports Character of the Year award on 20 December, as we focus on one particular of the 12 shortlisted nominees every day before the show.
Year in a nutshell
First British rider to win the Tour de France twice
Followed up 2013 triumph with yet another victory in gruelling 3-week occasion
Took each the overall title and the King of the Mountains classification
Shrugged off abuse, like getting spat at and having urine thrown more than him
What they say – Geraint Thomas
“On the massive days of a Tour, Froomey will talk to the group outlining what he desires. When you hear your team leader saying stuff like that, it brings you up.
“When Froomey is on the bike, he’s not so good any longer. You have to fight for your spot in the bunch and, specially when you get into the final stage of the race and the top couple of guys are left, you can see the fight in him.
“I never imply he’s going to punch [rival Nairo] Quintana or something like that, but that real fight to get every little thing out and give almost everything to the finish line.
“In the Tour of Spain a couple of years ago, he was coming back from injury and wasn’t most likely to win but he kept fighting every single single day and that sums up his attitude actually.”
What you say
Ben Wilson: “The man has won the hardest sporting occasion in the planet twice. A no-brainer for me. Chris Froome for #SPOTY.”
Andrew Harvey: “Initial British double Tour de France champion, plus 1st to win all round and mountains jerseys considering that Merckx in 1970.”
Larry Bird: “Won the most gruelling sporting occasion twice, showed dignity and class all through whilst becoming treated disgracefully.”
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Chris Froome claimed his second Tour de France title in 3 years in July with a consummate show of all-round riding
Chris Froome insists his “benefits will stand the test of time” after releasing physiological information in an try to answer these who doubt he twice won the Tour de France as a clean rider.
Esquire has published three sets of data on the web, with a full story in the next edition of the magazine on Monday.
The very first set is from 2007, the second from this year’s Tour and the third from August’s independent tests.
“Hopefully, it is going to satisfy some of the queries asked,” stated Froome.
“I know what I’ve done to get right here. I am the only a single who can genuinely [know] one hundred% that I’m clean.
“I haven’t broken the rules. I haven’t cheated. I have not taken any secret substance that isn’t identified of however.
“I know my outcomes will stand the test of time, that ten, 15 years down the line folks won’t say, ‘Ah, so that was his secret’. There is not a secret.”
The information from 2007 was collected by the sport’s planet governing body, the International Cycling Union, throughout the Kenyan-born rider’s stint at the World Cycling Centre, a programme for talented athletes from creating cycling nations.
The complete story of Chris Froome’s independent testing will be in the December/January edition of Esquire, which goes on sale on Monday
The UCI blood information is incomplete by today’s requirements, as it predates the introduction of the biological passport in 2009.
Two essential tests at that point – his VO2 Max and threshold energy – indicate the sort of rider who could win 1 of cycling’s largest races, provided he lost weight to boost his climbing ability.
That is also the picture painted by the tests Froome underwent at the GSK High Performance Lab in London in August.
On that occasion his VO2 Max, which is the peak amount of oxygen an athlete can use, was 84.six (ml/kg/min) – readjusted for his Tour weight, that it is 88.2, a quantity that supports the energy data Team Sky released in July from his superb victory on stage ten at this year’s Tour.
That “data dump” was an try by Froome’s team to defuse what was becoming a toxic atmosphere at the race.
GSK HLP’s senior scientist Dr Phillip Bell described Froome’s VO2 Max values as getting “close to what we believe are the upper limits for humans”.
As well as his independent testing results, Froome has also given Esquire biological passport blood tests from 13 July, the day prior to that 10th stage win, and 20 August.
The initial sample shows Froome’s haemoglobin level (the molecule in red blood cells that carries oxygen) was 15.three grams per litre, with .72% of his red blood cells being immature cells known as reticulocytes (produced by bone marrow in response to the body’s wants).
This produces an OFF-score, an equation used in anti-doping to indicate attainable blood manipulation, of 102.1.
The second sample show haemoglobin of 15.3, with a reticulocyte count of .96%, and an OFF-score of 94.21.
On their own, there is practically nothing about these scores that reveals something untoward but, as British athletics star Paula Radcliffe has not too long ago discovered, they only give a snapshot of what is happening at a particular moment and definitive proof that somebody is clean calls for a lot more data, recorded more than time.
Froome’s critics point to the lack of success Froome had just before his breakthrough at the 2011 Vuelta as evidence of one thing suspicious – he says he was struggling with illness and inexperience till then
That, nonetheless, is some thing that very couple of athletes have been willing or capable to make.
Froome’s former Team Sky group-mate Sir Bradley Wiggins told BBC Radio five reside on Thursday that the Briton faced an virtually not possible job in attempting to convince everybody he is clean.
“I do not feel [releasing his information] is going to adjust perceptions or what folks feel but at the same time that is what men and women have referred to as for and he’s carried out it,” stated Wiggins, who has also had to deal with speculation about his successes on the road – speculation he has dismissed.
“Hats off to him for undertaking it and I’m confident it’s not going to be some thing that [he and Team Sky] are going to live and die by.
“I never consider it is going to change anything but it’s a modest step maybe.”
Froome 1st announced his intention to release the outcomes of independent physiological testing throughout this year’s Tour.
As in 2013, his first victory, he was subjected to intense media scrutiny over the veracity of his performances, which spilled more than into some deeply unpleasant scenes on the roadside.
His team-mate and close buddy Richie Porte was punched by a fan for the duration of 1 stage, Group Sky’s vehicles have been regularly pelted with drinks and rubbish by spectators and Froome himself was spat at and had urine thrown at him on one particular particularly ugly day.
Froome told Esquire that the accusations of doping did bother him – “it really is challenging not to get angry” – but denied they detracted from his joy at becoming the 1st British rider to win a second Tour title.
“Absolutely nothing is going to taint that for me,” he mentioned.
“All that stuff, it was an added challenge and did make it tougher, but in a way it feels like an even greater achievement.”
Provided what is known now about the sport’s current history of endemic doping, Froome added that he understands why a lot of cycling fans are so sceptical and accepts that “inquiries do need to have to be asked”.
“As extended as the concerns are fair, I am satisfied to answer them,” he stated.
The benefits of his testing at GSK HPL are expected to be published in an unspecified scientific journal at a later date and Froome is also believed to be open to the concept of further testing in the future.
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