Chris Froome’s disappointing Tour de France only strengthened his legend

According to everything we know about the history of cycling, Chris Froome had no business looking as he happy as he did on the final podium of the Tour de France on Sunday.

Froome had finished third after trying to win his fifth yellow jersey, which would have tied him for the most ever by any rider ever whose accomplishments haven’t been stricken. And like those forsaken riders of yore, Froome had been harassed all along the French countryside, getting booed and spat on by spectators, and on at least one occasion physically accosted.

The fact that his own teammate ripped the yellow jersey from him should have been the biggest insult. Sure, he and Geraint Thomas are longtime friends, but the history of the Tour is filled with back stabbings and smashed egos. We all hoped for palace intrigue, but Froome refused to play the role of Bernard Hinault and undermine his teammate. And unlike Greg LeMond, Thomas was reluctant to accept the starring role.

Only when it was all over — as both Thomas and Froome beamed in front of the Arc de Triomphe, but Thomas from a higher perch — did Thomas acknowledge the elephant in the room.

“Big respect to Froomey,” he said. “Obviously it could have gone awkward, there could have been tension, but mate you were a great champion. Always have respect for you, and thanks a lot.”

Thomas didn’t sound like a domestique who had been living in fear of his team captain as Lance Armstrong’s teammates did. And though process has always been the true master of Team Sky, Froome has earned the right to lord over the team.

He has earned the right to lord over the Tour, really. Froome cracked in the late, high mountains, exactly the sort of stages that had become his signature in the Tour. If he had put on a gloomy guise as Thomas gave one of the most endearing, literally mic-dropping victory speeches of recent memory, no one could have criticized him. Lesser riders who have had better races have looked much more miserable on the podium in the past.

Froome seemed genuinely happy to have completed what many would call a shit Tour. And we have to use the word seemed because Armstrong has forever ruined the way we read champion cyclists. But there’s good reason to believe Froome is a much different person, and more special in his own way.

In contrast to his French village-shaming Team Sky chief Dave Brailsford, Froome has generally been friendly towards the host nation — at least, friendlier than it is to him. Yes, Sky internalized the taunting and spitting for motivation, but Froome has also made a point to learn and speak French for French media, even as English takes over as the predominant language in the peloton.

Froome can hold grudges — as his somehow still-ongoing feud with Sir Bradley Wiggins shows — but within the world he lives, he is a beacon of level-headedness. His salbutamol case proves that.

The handling of the decision to let him race in the Tour was a fiasco. The Tour’s organizing body, ASO, banned Froome from racing the week before the start of the Tour, only for UCI, cycling’s governing body, to announce the next day that Froome had cleared his doping investigation. UCI’s statement, released in conjunction with the World Anti-Doping Agency, lacked convincing details, fueling speculation that the two organizations had been bullied into submission by Team Sky’s money and lawyers. UCI president David Lappartient almost immediately undermined his own organization’s decision, which in turn ignited Brailsford’s scorched-earth campaign against an entire country.

All of it created a scary situation for Froome and his teammates, the ones who were on the road facing potential physical danger because of a bunch bickering men. And yet somehow, Froome mostly kept his mouth shut for three weeks. He could have lashed out at any number of people — at Lappartient and UCI, at ASO for banning him in the first place, or his own sporting director. He probably should have taken a crack at Hinault, who tried his damndest to incite a riot against him.

At this point we have to start splitting hairs. I think there is a fair chance (I have no idea how to handicap it) that Froome and Sky have lied, and that they full-well intended for Froome to take twice the accepted dose of a bronchial dilator that assists in oxygen transfer to the lungs. Athletes who are at the top of their sport — any sport — have a propensity to lie about a few of the steps they take to make marginal gains. We know this.

But if Froome is a cheat, then at least he doesn’t seem to be an ass. In this era of cycling, we need to make this distinction. The Armstrong era opened our eyes to the fact that nearly everyone is trying to get something over on their opponents at all times. It also opened our eyes to the fine line between a game competitor and a diabolical jerk. Armstrong, who ruined the lives of those who tried to tell the truth about him, was the latter. Froome, from everything we can see, is the former.

More than that, Froome comported himself like a good sport throughout the 2018 Tour. This event, whose history has been built on the toil of what history has revealed to be extremely bitter men, desperately needs that. And I believe Froome is true. Or at least, it’s unfathomable to me that one man could wade through a month of this much shit and smile unless he meant it. Armstrong certainly would never.

Maybe Froome is the legend cycling needs for a post-doping generation, someone who aims to win but can still appreciate the journey. Someone for whom the point isn’t haggling over credit, but knowing he maximized his effort. For once, I want cycling legends to grow old and not become paranoid Back In My Day take fountains, but proper ambassadors to the sport.

I want them to like their sport as much as I like it — and yes, there’s still so much to like.

When it first looked like Thomas would win the yellow jersey, I, like many, started rooting for Sky to fall apart at its seams. Now I want to see more teams like it as testaments to the teamwork and spirit that cycling could embody. Yes, a salary cap would be nice, but far beyond budget, Sky is a worthy model of how cycling and the Tour de France can finally become less cynical and more beloved.

Thomas won the Tour de France with one of the most flawless individual rides you may ever see. But his success began with Froome, the man who somewhere along the line learned there are much more important things than history.