Team Sky rider talks of the challenge of fighting complacency
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Chris Froome wants a third Tour de France title in 2016 plus the gold medal in the Rio Olympic road race and time trial events(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Chris Froome struggles during stage 11.(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Chris Froome reaches out to the fans(Image credit: ASO)
Chris Froome went for a sparkly suit jacket(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Full Froome rising. Chris Froome approaches the Mont Ventoux finish line in 2013(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Chris Froome believes that he’ll have to be better than he’s ever been before in order to win the 2016 Tour de France.
The Team Sky rider took his tally of Tour titles to two at this year’s race but will be looking to become the first rider to (legitimately) win the race back-to-back since Miguel Indurain in 1995. His first maillot jaune came in 2013 but it was only after the disappointment of abandoning the following year that he was able to come back and double up.
“I feel as if there are two ways of approaching it,” said Froome, speaking at the Web Summit conference in Dublin on Tuesday. "One: on the back of disappointment. In the moment, it’s hugely frustrating – you feel that months of training and preparation have gone out of the window.
“But actually those disappointments are fantastic – that’s what picks me up, motivates me. I go home, analyse why things went wrong. I really feel that gives me a lot of motivation to come back even stronger the next opportunity I get.”
It follows, then, that Froome will have an even greater task on his hands when he once again goes into the 2016 edition of the Tour as defending champion. Although the route, which features far more time trialling, is better suited to him competitively than this year, he insists it will be a challenge to battle against complacency.
“What’s more tricky is trying to stay motivated and even trying to improve when things have gone well for you. It’s quite easy to fall into the trap of becoming complacent. You say, ‘I’ve won the Tour de France, I’ll just go in next year and try and do the same again’. But it doesn’t work like that.
“I’m going to have to try and be better next year, I’ve got to look at everything – every factor, my nutrition, my training, everything – to be ready for the Tour de France, and try and do it better than I have in the past.
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“It’s that constant evaluation. I don’t think you’re ever at the point where you’ve got the winning formula. The sport is evolving, you’re coming up against stronger rivals every year. We’ve won the Tour de France three times now at Team Sky so we’ve got a good basic formula for getting ready for the Tour de France, but its something we constantly need to challenge, we need to constantly become better at everything we do.”
