David Sharp - Va Va Froome: The Remarkable Rise of Chris Froome

12 July 2012

Stage 11: AlbertvilleLa ToussuireLes Sybelles, 148km

Team Skys plan was to control the race all day. Ride the opposition into the ground over the first three huge mountain passes, set a blistering pace up and over the summits and then start the peel-offs. Put the opposition on the back foot and keep them there. Hit the gas on the final climb to the ski station at La Toussuire. Then watch them scatter across the mountain in bits. Replicate the strategy that had worked so well at La Planche des Belles Filles on Stage 7. Theyd stomped all over the opposition in the Vosges mountains, and Bradley Wiggins had taken the maillot jaune. The British rider was now the leader of the Tour de France. There was even the bonus that his loyal domestique, Chris Froome, had sprinted past Cadel Evans in the last 100m for a thrilling stage win. They had been in complete control. Control the controllables one of the teams favourite mantras. Turn the screw, keep turning the screw, and then one by one they will pop.

On this glorious, sun-drenched Thursday, it was time to do it again. Stage 11. The first proper mountaintop finish of the race, in the heart of the French Alps. Definitely a day for specialist climbers. From Albertville the peloton headed due south through the spectacular Savoie, on a 148km trek that featured two hors catgorie (meaning beyond categorisation or so ridiculously tough it defies a rating) climbs, Cols de la Madeleine and Croix de Fer, and one Category 2, the Col du Mollard, before they arrived at the foot of the final peak, a long drag up the Category 1 ascent to La Toussuire, on a stretch of mountain road that would be transformed for the afternoon into a giant open-air sporting amphitheatre.

This is what the Sky squad had been training for. Long, arduous weeks spent at training camps. In January, in Mallorca, tackling over and over again the 26 hairpins of the fearsome Sa Calobra climb. Then, in May, at a secluded retreat in Tenerife, in the nether regions of the back of beyond. Six-hour training rides at high altitude in suffocating desert heat in the shadow of a vast extinct volcano. They were in superlative physical and mental condition. At the top of their game. Ready to rumble.

It was a day of attack and defence. Defending champion Evans, the gritty Australian, threw down the gauntlet on the slopes of the Col du Glandon, on the steepest section, 8km from the top, just before the road turns onto the Croix de Fer. Between the twin peaks, the snarling, two-headed beasts of the great Alpine passes, Evans leapt away in a pre-planned, long-range kamikaze escape bid. It was 66km from the finish, but, lying third, 1:53 adrift of the yellow jersey, he was desperate to claw back time on Wiggins. Surely hed gone too soon? He had. Sky picked up the gauntlet and threw it back in his face. But slowly, stealthily, to heighten his suffering. No need to panic. Ride at a high, steady tempo and eventually theyd reel him in. Skys Michael Rogers turns up the power a notch or two and tows Wiggins, Froome, Richie Porte and anyone else who can stay on their coat-tails up the mountain. A few kilometres from the summit of the Croix de Fer, Evans is caught. Hes toiling. Finished as a threat. Job done. Soon they are cresting the top of the next mountain, the Mollard. Up and over. They hurtle down the dizzying descent, snaking at high speed down a series of tightly packed hairpins, to the village of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.

The view south to the Aiguilles dArves is breathtaking. The northern needle of its three giant peaks, the Aiguille Septentrionale, with its bizarre cats head, is clearly visible in the distance. As the sun burns away traces of morning fog in the Maurienne valley and scorches the top layers off the glaciers that permanently crown the French Alps, the crowd wait in their tens of thousands on the slopes of the climb to La Toussuire. The waiting is over. Here they come.

Team Sky hit the foot of the mountain an unremittingly steep 18km climb to the out-of-season ski station. Tasmanian climber Porte begins his stint at the front, leading Wiggins and Froome up the horribly steep opening stretch. The cruel 9% gradient splinters the peloton. Skys relentless pace repels any attacks. Further up the road from the head of the main field are the four breakaways. Frenchman Pierre Rolland nursing a bloodied elbow after he took a tumble on the Mollard toboggan run Croatian Robert Kierlovski, Belarusian Vasili Kiryienka and the Dane, Chris Anker Srensen. None is a threat to Wiggins. Rolland is the closest, in twentieth place, over nine minutes back.

Twelve kilometres to the finish. Suddenly Vincenzo Nibali swings off the back of the thirteen-strong yellow jersey group and catapults himself, as if launched from a pair of invisible pinball flippers, up the road past Wiggins. The Italian sits fourth overall, 2:23 behind the Londoner. He is a threat. Fluidly shifting through the gears, Nibali is five, ten, fifteen, twenty metres past before they even notice hes gone. As he dances up the climb on their blind side and appears again magically in their line of vision, Froome and Porte simultaneously turn to give Wiggins a comic-book double-take, as if to say, OK, boss, what do we do now?

Nibalis devastating burst of acceleration has eliminated all but Wiggins, Froome, Evans, the young American Tejay van Garderen and Luxembourger Frank Schleck. The suddenly diminished group contains the first, second and third placed riders in the Tour de France: Wiggins, Evans and Froome.