‘Chris is not a water carrier!’ – Ten reasons Chris Froome should NOT go to the Tour de France

In light of the last results of the Tour de l'Ain and only a couple of weeks before the start of the Tour de France, Sir Dave Brailsford is probably thinking a lot about the composition of his Ineos team for the first Grand Tour. The following thoughts would come to my mind:

The first and most important goal for the Tour is to have the yellow jersey in their ranks upon arrival in Paris on September 20th.

How do we do it, he will ask. Option one: many captains and a few helpers. Option two: few captains and many helpers. I think we can assume that Team Ineos sent a potential Tour de France team to the Tour de l'Ain and tested the option with three captains - with two leaders only able to classify themselves as helpers.

Brailsford is really only left with one path forward and that is the one-captain strategy. If a former Tour winner has serious ambitions for a podium place in the Tour of France, then he cannot get 41st place in the overall standings around three weeks before the start and thus four places and 2:30 minutes behind the best German U23 driver. In this admittedly very busy Tour, 37th place was an incredibly great result for Jakob Gessner, but 41st place was also a very unsatisfactory result for Chris Froome.

How would the four-time Tour champion want to make up for the missing 15 to 20 percent performance in less than three weeks before the tour starts in Nice? For me, Egan Bernal is the clear Ineos captain for the Tour de France. This leaves seven more places free, which can be filled with helpers for the flat stages and the mountains.

I would take Geraint Thomas with me as a bodyguard, a driver whose only job is to be by Bernal's side at every second of the race. As another mountain tour is on the program, Team Ineos will nominate Jonathan Castroviejo, Andrey Amador and Sebastián Henao as noble helpers in the mountains. Then there are still three starting places left. Ian Stannard, pacemaker and powerhouse, snaps one of them. Great drivers like Dylan van Baarle, Michal Kwiatkowski, Christian Knees, Luke Rowe and Gianni Moscon are ready for the last two places.

Perhaps Dave Brailsford is already thinking about the future and nominates the successful talent Tao Geoghegan Hart so that he can get a taste of the Tour air.

In my personal tour formation of Team Ineos, Chris Froome does not play a role. I'll try to explain that:

1. Chris Froome is leaving the team at the end of the season.

2. After the long break from injury, he was not able to build on his old capabilities.

3. With Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal, there are already two former Tour winners in the line-up, both are younger and their successes are less long ago.

4. There is no long individual time trial in which Chris could play to his strengths.

5 . Froome is a winner, a champion and not a water carrier. He is used to being slipped his drinking bottles instead of fetching them. He has not done speed driving on flat stages for years. Taking Chris into the line-up would be a wasted space for a real class helper.

6. The superiority, strength and unity of Team Jumbo Visma is almost overwhelming. The Dutch team finished the Tour de l'Ain in first, fourth and fifth place (And now won the opening stage of the Criterium du Dauphine). Another driver finished the tour in eleventh place. Primoz Roglic and Co. had a large part of their team at the finish line well ahead of Chris Froome.

7. The advanced age. Nature is relentless and the longer the racing driver ages, the longer the regeneration time. You slow down in your reactions and drive a little more carefully. After his fall and the break, Chris just doesn't seem to be able to return to the old level.

8. Peace in the team: The team atmosphere is extremely important on a three-week tour. A dissatisfied driver can then be very stressful for the rest of the team.

9. Team boss Brailsford left the former Tour winner and my current Eurosport colleague Bradley Wiggins at home on the tour in 2014 for similar reasons. He knows exactly that the most prestigious cycling tour in the world is not a pony farm, but a tough business in which every necessary decision to secure the yellow jersey must be made regardless of any sensitivities.

10. A professional cyclist is only as good as his last result, very simple.

Dave Brailsford will have similar thoughts these days and, to be honest, I don't want to be in his shoes in making this decision.

I look forward to your opinion and reactions. And let me assure you that, despite everything, I have the utmost respect for Chris Froome and am bound by friendship.

Yours,

Jens Voigt