Chris Froome 'optimistic' about Tour de France despite lack of form at Dauphine

[ASFN Admin]

Chris Froome says he remains “optimistic” about making Team Ineos’s Tour de France squad despite still being some way off his best. The 35-year-old, who is making his way back from a career-threatening crash at last year’s Criterium du Dauphine, was dropped 13km from the finish of Friday's third stage of this year’s Dauphine, from Corenc to Saint-Martin de Belleville. Froome lost contact with the GC group in the first few kilometres of the final climb. The four-times Tour champion is nearly 16 minutes down on race leader Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma). But speaking on Friday morning, Froome, who has been playing a support role for 2019 Tour winner Egan Bernal at recent races, insisted he was still positive. "Obviously I'm still finding the race rhythm," said the 35-year-old. "It's incredible to be back in the peloton. But keeping in mind I've only had a handful of days racing in over a year now, I'm feeling better and better as I do more days of racing. I'm feeling optimistic about the Tour." "Every day is a test and every day is about pushing the condition. I'm really happy with the progress I've made so far - it's been really encouraging." Roglic extended his lead in the race by finishing second behind solo winner Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates). Formolo, who rode well over 50km on his own, attacked from the breakaway on the major climb of the day, the Col de la Madeleine, opening up a near six-minute gap to the peloton. The Italian then dug deep on the final climb to Saint-Martin de Belleville to win by 33 seconds. Roglic leads Frenchman Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) by 14 seconds in the overall, with Bernal slipping back a bit to seventh at 31 seconds. Ineos team mate Pavel Sivakov, the first of the Ineos riders over the line, said there was no need to panic. “Egan told me that he was not feeling super today,” he told the team’s website. “So I stayed with him and tried to bring him to the final. In the finish the sprint started. I carried on and maybe with 100 metres to go I saw that he was dropped. “We did a big block of training. Now it’s the racing and you need to top up the shape at these races. Especially for Egan, coming from altitude, he did a really big block there. It’s still a long way to the Tour, especially to the third week. We’ve got time, we don’t need to stress or worry.”

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