Chris Froome raring to take on Alberto Contador in 2015 Tour de France

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jan/12/chris-froome-alberto-contador-legend-tour-de-france

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Shortly before Chris Froome rolls out from Team Sky’s winter camp in Mallorca for another six-hour stint in the saddle, he confides there is a bigger opponent than the craggy summit of Cap de Formentor on his mind: Alberto Contador, Spain’s great El Pistolero, who won a riveting mano a mano shootout between the pair in September’s Vuelta a España.

“He definitely pushes me to train harder,” Froome says. “When I’m out training, I am thinking I wonder what he’s up to today, I wonder how hard he’s training. I always assume he is, somewhere in snowy, wet Lugano.”

In Mallorca there is not a cloud in the sky, or in Team Sky. As Froome admits: “There’s a better vibe than this time last year.” Some of that he attributes to a greater hunger in the camp, backed up by the prime-beef recruitment of Nicolas Roche and Leopold Konig – top-10 finishers in Grand Tours – and Wout Poels, a willing workhorse in the mountains. It helps, too, the inflammation in his back that nagged Froome for most of 2014 has gone, obliterated by 45 minutes of core and stability work every day. As a result he feels faster and more stable on the bike.

And, he concedes, more stable in his mind too. “I feel I’m in a lot better place mentally. I feel I don’t have nearly the same kind of pressure I had last year. Last year through the winter it was very much ‘OK, I’ve won the Tour [de France], now you’re going to try to do it again. Everyone’s banking on you doing this.’ It felt a bit overwhelming at times.”

It showed. When facing the press, Froome often spoke with the unease of someone who feared his every word could trigger a landmine. His nationality; his relationship with Bradley Wiggins; doping in cycling and his Therapeutic Use Exemption in last April’s Tour of Romandie – all were topics that caused him to retreat into monosyllables. Here though he opens up: about Contador, about his struggles to make racing weight, his ambition to ride until he is 40 – even what he thought of Lance Armstrong comparing his riding style to the US golfer Jim Furyk. “I’ll take it,” he says, smiling. “I know my style is different to other guys. But like Lance says, it works.”

Inevitably, though, our conversation drifts to this year’s Tour de France and to Contador, even though the race is six months away. “He is an extremely tough rival for me. If anyone knows how to win the Tour de France, it’s him.”

The battle between the pair is often depicted as the swashbuckler against the metronome, with Contador launching attacks and Froome riding to his power metre. But in la Vuelta, Froome pushed repeatedly, attempting to break the Spaniard. So was it a psychological blow that he was unable to do so?

“Not at all,” Froome says. “I don’t think I was at 100%. I was coming back from injury. He was coming back from injury too but he came back better than I was. I still think it was a fantastic race. I gave everything and tried my hardest to get rid of him but he was better than me.”

Froome is not only impressed by Contador’s extraordinary physical gifts, but his extrasensory perception, an instinctive sixth sense about who in the peloton might go wobbly on a given day. As Froome puts it neatly: “Alberto can smell weakness. He can smell it when you’re having a bad day.”

As for Contador’s doping, Froome concedes that “it is always going to be a controversial topic” but he does not ever go down the road of thinking an opponent is on something: “That’s not how I’m programmed to think.

“But winning the Tour de France in 2013 and being runner-up to Brad [Wiggins] the year before has given me that confidence I can be at the top without doping. I can race clean.

“I know the sport has been through turmoil over the last 10 to 15 years but I would say it’s in the best place it has ever been in terms of policing and control that’s inflicted on the Pro Tour riders.”

Froome believes Contador’s decision to attempt the Giro d’Italia–Tour de France double, last achieved by Marco Pantani in 1998 (with, as it turned out, pharmaceutical assistance), could leave him vulnerable at the Tour.

“I wouldn’t say it’s impossible but he’s set himself a difficult task,” Froome says. “I know how hard it is to do two Grand Tours, aiming for the win. By the time you get to that third week of the second Grand Tour, you’re on your hands and knees.”

Not that the 2015 Tour is a custom fit for Froome. Rather it is loaded towards climbers, with no time trial, a discipline Froome excels in. The presence of last year’s Tour de France winner, Vincenzo Nibali, and the Colombian Nairo Quintana, so impressive in taking the Giro d’Italia last year, should ensure a battle royal.

“I think it’s great for the sport that we’re all in with a shot of winning it,” Froome says. “That’s what everyone wants to see but it means I am going to have to work a lot harder in the mountains and make sure my weight is exactly where I need it to be come the start.”

There is a not lick of fat on him, yet Froome says he will have to lose another 4kg to get down to 66kg for the Tour. It is a struggle that does not get any easier. “Professional cycling is very much the battle of who’s the hungriest,” he says, smiling again. “How badly do you want that victory? How badly do you want to win the Tour de France? You can call it the hunger game in a way.”

Are there days when he is looking at a pack of biscuits and is tempted? “Oh, there’s loads of days. I have a weakness for white chocolate and Nutella and pancakes but I tell myself, wait until September when the season’s over and you can have as many of those as you want.”

For now Froome’s hunger is directed at the new season, especially after a see-sawing 2014 during which he crashed while second in Le Dauphiné Libéré to Contador and careered out of the Tour de France on the filthy-wet fifth stage. And he still believes he can join such as Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain as a multiple winner of the Tour.

“To go down as one of the great riders you don’t just need to win the Tour once,” he says firmly. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to win the Tour again but I’m certainly going to give it everything, my goal is to be back there for the next five to six years targeting the victory.”

That is a bold statement given he will turn 30 in May. Froome, however, hopes that in cycling years 40 is the new 30. “I’ve seen other riders go past 40, so I’ve set myself the target that I want to be racing for the next 10 years. I think it’s as much a mental thing as physical. I just hope I can keep this same hunger and determination.”

There seems little doubt of that. Team Sky finished 2014 without a stage victory in all three of the Grand Tours, and the signing of Peter Sagan has strengthened their main rivals Tinkoff-Saxo even further. But Froome is relaxed and ready to stake his place at the front of the peloton again.

“I love it,” he says. “I love being on the road, I love this team atmosphere, I want to do this as long as I can.

“This year I feel like we’re all starting from scratch. The Tour de France is where we want to get to, and we’ve got an amazing team to support that goal so there’s nothing stopping us. I feel it’s there if we want it.”