Paper Round: Froome triumphs but the IOC pass the buck, plus Pep and Mou are united

Chris Froome is the toast of the British sporting world after securing a remarkable third Tour de France title, winning the hearts and minds of the public along the way - says The Telegraph. Froome's celebrations on the Champs Elysees were starkly different to this time last year, with the rider finally winning over the British sporting public with his astonishing dominance and humble acceptance speech. Sky's control of the race may have upset the neutrals, but Froome can now deservedly call himself one of the greatest athletes to have ever represented Great Britain.

Paper Round's view: Froome might not be fully loved, but he's respected... and it's about time! Britain's greatest road cyclist has not been given the plaudits he's deserved because of a perceived lack of personality, both on and off the bike. But his descending heroics and mountain attacks won over those still unsure in the cycling community, while his run up Ventoux caught the eye of even the most part-time of sports enthusiasts.

Wiggins still has more fans than Froome though, and not just because he's got bigger sideburns. The Olympics is what will turn Froome from merely liked and into a legend. Win the road race or the time trial in Rio and it will expose his brilliance to the wider British public in a way that even the Tour can't do. Victory in either event will be hard, but Froome is surely the stand-out rider in the time trial field and will be in with a great shot in the road race if his four British team-mates can keep him in touch. It's going to be thrilling to watch.

The International Olympic Committee have passed the buck by allowing individual sporting federations to decide on whether or not to ban Russia from the Rio Olympics - says the Daily Mail. The discovery of the widespread doping racket in Sochi had presented the Olympic organisers a golden opportunity to take a stance on the issue of drugs, but instead they have bowed to pressure from Russia and shifted the dilemma on to somebody else by allowing each sport to decide on Russia's fate.

Paper Round's view: 'Destroyed the Olympics' is a little strong, but (and it's not often we can say this) it's hard not to agree with the Daily Mail... at least on their opinion of the IOC. This is a spineless decision. It's not fair on all of the different sports' governing bodies to have to make a call on Russia with so little time left before the start of the Games.

The IOC had a chance to take a stand against organised doping and they've completely bottled it. Banning Russia completely would have led to claims of double standards, and not without cause, but there should be no place for doping on the scale that Richard McLaren's report has exposed and a firm example should have been made. Instead we drift into the pre-Olympic fortnight with the whole issue still completely up in the air and threatening to run over into the start of the Games.

The playing conditions in China have upset both Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola ahead of the club's pre-season Manchester derby - reports the Mirror. The two managerial heavyweights are concerned for the safety of their players at Beijing's Bird's Nest after torrential rain has obliterated the playing surface. The state of the turf is likely to see both managers play heavily weakened XIs for fear of losing first-team stars to serious injury.

Paper Round's view: The state of the playing surface at Beijing's Bird's Nest has achieved the near-impossible in bringing Mourinho and Guardiola on to the same page. It's bad enough that we have to suffer this farce of local derbies in pre-season games, but now the safety of the players is creating headlines too. It's a shambles. The game itself will likely be a non-event as a result and the playing public will not get the experience they want from the occasion.

This is not the ground-staff's fault mind. The weather has been so poor that there is little that could have been done. The responsibility lies with the clubs for organising such an inflexible and demanding schedule purely for the purpose of making money from their clubs' respective fan bases around the world. The game should be moved or postponed, but it won't be - to the detriment of everyone involved.