The physiological testing undergone by Chris Froome this summer, the results of which were published today in Esquire magazine, has been labeled “insufficient” by sports scientist Frédéric Grappe.
Grappe, who works as performance director at the FDJ team, was the man who was tasked by Team Sky in 2013 with analysing a cross-section of Froome’s values in an attempt to quell speculation stemming from his debut Tour de France victory. The suspicion surrounding Froome’s second Tour victory this year was more intense still, and the 30-year-old has sought to appease the doubters by painting this picture of his physiological profile.
Though Grappe says the testing was a good step, he told Cyclingnews that the process was insufficient; that there were numerous aspects that could have been measured or published but weren’t; and that the results mean little without the context of a longitudinal system of evaluation.
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“It is very insufficient. It shows that he has a huge aerobic potential, but that’s it, there are no more indications than that,” said Grappe.
“What is surprising is that they didn’t give us the maximum heart rate – it’s not there, they didn’t give the result. I don’t know why. Similarly, they didn’t give the lactate threshold. Explosiveness, the same; there are no explosiveness values – efforts of a few seconds. That would have been interesting to see.
“And surprisingly, we don’t have a value for gross efficiency. That I find very surprising. It’s the relationship between power and oxygen consumption. If he is 21% or 23% efficient, it’s not the same. That impacts upon the level of effort on climbs; you don’t produce the same number of watts with 23% efficiency as with 21%. But they haven’t given those values.
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