While Simon Yates comes out of the Giro d’Italia with credit, there is still uncertainty about Team Sky and their lead rider When Simon Yates cracked so disastrously on the bottom slopes of the Colle delle Finestre while leading the Giro d’Italia last Friday, it looked like the most humiliating of personal catastrophes. Yet it may have been the best thing that has ever happened to the young English rider, at least if he wants to avoid the fate of Chris Froome, the man who caused his downfall. Yates had gone into his 13th day in the leader’s pink jersey holding an advantage of almost half a minute over his nearest pursuer, with the memory of a trio of majestic...
Dave Brailsford’s lofty ideals when setting up Team Sky have been exposed under the pressure of top-level competitionTo judge from Dave Brailsford’s words the other day it seems he still doesn’t get it. He was talking in a press conference about the business of the abnormally high salbutamol level in a urine sample taken from Chris Froome in Spain last September but not revealed – by this newspaper and Le Monde – until three months later. While re-emphasising his belief that Froome had done nothing wrong, he added that the finding should not have been made public.But when Brailsford set up Team Sky eight years ago it was on the basis of absolute honesty and openness. We are going to...
Bristol City celebration and Cricket World Cup final were among the highlights in a year when sport too often seemed to reflect the corrosion of the world around itThe sight of Bristol City’s manager sweeping up a 10-year-old ballboy in a dance of pure joy to celebrate their team’s last-minute cup victory over mighty Manchester United last week added a note of sweetness to a year of conflict and contradictions. Many sports lovers had found themselves spending too much time in 2017 worrying about the integrity of what they were being asked to applaud: the integrity of the competitor, the integrity of the competition.From state-sponsored doping to tax avoidance, from child-abuse cover-ups to corruption in sport’s most powerful governing bodies, so...
Whether Froome is cleared or banned over Vuelta a España doping test, Team Sky credibility has plunged such depths the court of public opinion is already making its own judgmentIt is more than 23 years since the curious case of Miguel Induráin, the then four-time Tour winner who ended up being declared “positive in France” for elevated levels of the asthma cure salbutamol, which was banned at the time in that country. It will be no comfort to another four‑times Tour winner, Chris Froome, that the substance is nothing new in cycling.For almost three months, the Team Sky leader has been involved in a battle to retain his first Vuelta a España victory after an adverse analytical finding for that...
Given sport’s bad reputational year, it is fine that the BBC is preparing to get Chris Froome to defend himself on what is normally a controversy-free programmeFor more than 60 years the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year has served up a mildly diverting few hours of saccharine and froth. The formula is long established: laud Britain’s sporting heroes, relive their glories through stirring montages, and throw a threw softball questions for them to answer.Usually it makes for an easily digestible, if unchallenging, three hours of viewing. On Sunday night, however, the BBC is expected to break with tradition by firmly questioning Chris Froome about his failed test at the Vuelta a España when he appears via video link from...