Chris Froome urged by rival to stop racing until salbutamol probe concludes
Chris Froome should not race until the probe into his Adverse Analytical Finding [AAF] for salbutamol has concluded, according to his French rival Romain Bardet.
On a day when a number of people weighed into the controversy over Froome’s abnormally high reading for the asthma medication, it was Bardet’s suggestion that Froome should self-suspend which grabbed the headlines.
The four-times Tour de France winner denies breaking any rules, saying he was advised by a Team Sky doctor to take more than the usual number of puffs of his inhaler but that he knew the limits very well and was certain he had never exceeded them.
Bardet, though, told French sports daily L’Equipe that the issue cast cycling in a poor light once again and suggested that Froome suspend himself.
“I can’t really see how Froome can race as if nothing was going on,” said the AG2R-La Mondiale rider, who finished runner-up to the Briton in 2016 and third last year.
“Since [Froome’s team] Team Sky are doing nothing, nothing prevents their rider from taking a step back until there is a decision from the authorities.”
Froome, who is in the process of trying to show investigators how the reading might have occurred naturally, could be suspended and stripped of his Vuelta title if he is unsuccessful.
“Will the UCI have the means to shed light on this case? Will experts manage to prove that it is possible to have such high natural levels [of Salbutamol]?” Bardet added. “I have a hard time imagining that a rider with such a high dose of Salbutamol can be cleared. Otherwise, why set a limit?”
Bardet also said he hoped that the UCI would reach a conclusion before the start of the Tour de France in less than six months. “Otherwise, it would be catastrophic for the image of the race and the image of cycling. It would be a farce,” he said.
The Giro d’Italia director Mauro Vegni hopes it will be even sooner than that. Froome had only just been unveiled as the star draw of this year’s race when his AAF for salbutamol was leaked at the start of December.
“We were really happy that Froome was going to ride our race. Now we have to hope that everything will be quickly clarified, for Froome, for the interests of the Giro and for cycling in general," Vegni told L’Equipe.
"I hope we'll soon have a final result but whatever happens, we can't accept a compromise solution as with Alberto Contador in 2011, where his win was cancelled from the record books for a positive test that happened in another race [the 2010 Tour de France].
"This time Froome's case emerged in September 2017. And the Giro starts in May 2018. That means there are eight months to find a solution. I want to believe that's enough time, otherwise, we have to despair about our ability to run our sport. The public wouldn't understand it and neither would I."
Former doper Floyd Landis, meanwhile, said he expected Team Sky to fold if Froome is hit with a ban. “When you have someone that high profile who suffers a ban it usually means the whole thing implodes,” Landis told The Guardian. “If I was on the board of directors or an executive at Sky or any of the companies who sponsor them I would be long gone. At some point they have to make a decision that looks ethical.”
The former US Postal Service rider, who won the Tour de France in 2006 before being stripped of that title for doping, said the combination of Froome’s test result, the revelations regarding Sir Bradley Wiggins’ use of Therapeutic Use Exemptions, as well as outstanding allegations regarding British Cycling, had convinced him that Sky’s claims of being whiter than white were nothing more than “great PR”.
“If you take all those things together, there’s no defending that team,” he said. “Any reasonable person would have more questions.”
Meanwhile, Laureus yesterday announced Froome as one of the nominees for the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year Award. Fellow Briton Mo Farah and Lewis Hamilton are also on the shortlist alongside Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Cristiano Ronaldo.
