If Team Sky believed the move to make public Chris Froome’s data from the summit finish at La Pierre-Saint-Martin on stage 10 of this year’s Tour de France would silence the doubters, they will have been left disappointed.
Tim Kerrison, Sky’s head of athlete performance, addressed the media during the second rest day of the Tour de France to explain Froome’s numbers after a documentary on Stade 2 estimated some his values for the climb, with physiologist Pierre Sallet concluding that Froome either has an extraordinary physiology or is doping.
It is the nature of the beast that it is nigh on impossible to provide concrete proof that a rider is clean and this new information has only offered another small glimpse of a still incomplete picture, raising with it only fresh questions.
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One such question is how Froome, if averaging 5.78 watts per kilogram on La Piere-Saint-Martin as Sky claim, climbed so much quicker than those who supposedly outpowered him, like Robert Gesink (5.93 w/kg). This only leads to fresh speculation, as well as highlighting the fallibility of assessment by numbers and the many variables by which they are affected.
How are we to know Gesink’s power meter is producing completely accurate data? Do his and others’ computers take into account fluctuations in weight from day to day? How can we have faith in Sky’s numbers, modified from the raw data because they claim osymetric chainrings overestimate power by six per cent?
The new numbers have failed to satisfy Sallet, who has revised his calculations in a fresh report published under the banner of his Athletes for Transparency body. Having originally taken Froome to weigh 71 kilograms, the 67.5kg figure given by Sky leads him to believe Froome averaged 408 watts over the climb, compared with his original 425 estimate and Sky’s claim of 414.
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