Four-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome has said that he's keeping his eyes out for opportunities as the race hits the Alps and its second half following Monday's rest day.
The Briton, racing his second Tour for Israel-Premier Tech, has suffered through some tough moments during the opening nine days of the race after breathing in dust on the cobbled stage 5 to Arenberg.
However, in a rest day interview he told of his ambition to make a breakaway later in the race and help his team battle for another stage win to go with Simon Clarke's victory from the break on the cobbles.
Froome currently lies 37th overall after nine days of racing, 28 minutes down on leader Tadej Pogačar – not hitting his former heights but a major improvement on his position at the same point in last year's race.
"For me personally, I'm feeling better and better," Froome said during the Tour rest day on Monday. "Hoping to have a look around and stay awake for opportunities, really see what opportunities present themselves in the race, and if the legs are good, I'm certainly going to go for it.
"This first period of the race has been tough. I've struggled a little bit with my health this last week, but I'm definitely feeling better getting to this first rest day. I feel especially after that cobbled stage it was just all in my chest coughing up dust for the next couple days.
"I'm certainly hoping the legs will be good going into these mountain stages coming up," he added, noting that team leader Jakob Fuglsang is in good form as the race heads to the Alps.
"I think we could see a lot more of him," Froome said. "The rest of us, we're really trying to help them out and try and get them into the breaks in the right moments. Personally, I'd love to be in one of those moves with them and see how far we can get into the climbs and see if we can be up there fighting for a stage win."
Fuglsang's co-leader Woods has been in the wars already, getting caught in a crash on Sunday's stage 9 to Châtel. The Canadian climber finished 131st on the day with cuts and road rash on his hip, elbow, leg, and back, but Froome said his teammate can bounce back from his hardship to affect the race.
"I think it was just one point there where the road turned and a bunch of guys just went flying straight over a central reservation in the road and Woodsy went down in that and he went down pretty hard," Froome said of Woods' crash.
"He got through yesterday, he finished the stage. There are really not many sports in the world where you see people carrying on and going to the finish line literally just bleeding, wounds open. Cycling can be pretty, pretty rough like that, but he's a tough, tough guy and I think he'll bounce back from it."
Froome called the first week of the Tour – which took the peloton from the flatlands of Denmark to the cobbles of northern France, and then to summit finishes in the Jura and Alps – "a pretty typical" one, with crashes and nervousness all having their usual effect.
He said that the team can hold their heads high after nine days though, thanks to Clarke's result in Arenberg. The 35-year-old joined the team at the start of the year, and in out-sprinting Taco van der Hoorn, gave them their first-ever Tour de France stage win.
"For us, I think the first-week highlight was really Clarkey getting that stage win on the cobbled stage," Froome said. "That was such an amazing experience. Just following that on the radio, hearing him getting closer to the finish, and basically the team getting fully behind him and saying to him 'OK, this is your chance, all in for the win here today' and hearing him pull it off.
"This is our third Tour de France that we've done. It's a very young team. So, to have got a stage win already and on such an epic stage, that's meant the world to the team, and also the project 'Racing for Change' that we're raising awareness for at this year's Tour de France," Froome added, referring to the team's 'Field of Dreams' campaign to build a bike centre in Rwanda.
He said that the stage win lifted the morale of everyone in the squad, adding that the success also "eases things up" for he and his teammates in terms of "freedom to really look for opportunities in this next part of the race."
After evaluating his own race and his team's achievements so far in July, Froome turned his eye to the ongoing battle at the top of the general classification, where two-time winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) leads 2021 runner-up Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) by 39 seconds.
Froome said that Vingegaard will be the man to challenge Pogačar through the rest of the race, adding that he felt for Vingegaard's co-leader Primož Roglič, who lost two minutes after getting caught up in a crash on stage 5.
"It's always interesting to see who can get through that first week unscathed, and especially with the cobbles that was quite a big hurdle for a lot of GC riders," Froome said. "It was unfortunate to see Primož Roglič get caught up in the crashes.
"But on the other side of that we've really seen Vingegaard really step up as well as a GC rider and as a contender to win this year's Tour de France. I believe that once we get into the big mountains, we're going to be seeing a lot more of him, and I think if anyone is going to challenge Pogačar this year, it's going to be him."
