Chris Froome (Sky) has said that he will go to next month's Vuelta a Espana with 'a sense of mission' as he bids to become only the third rider to win the Vuelta and Tour de France in the same season.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Froome revisited his most trying day on the 2017 Tour de France, blamed his travails during stage 12 to Peyragudes on failing to eat sufficiently in the days beforehand. The Briton also confirmed that Mikel Nieve will leave Sky for Orica-Scott in 2018.
Froome temporarily conceded the maillot jaune when he lost 22 seconds on the final kick to the line at Peyragudes, a setback all the more surprising because of the way Team Sky had so dominated the stage to that point.
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Speaking to French newspaper Liberation in the final days of the Tour, Froome's directeur sportif Nicolas Portal revealed that Sky had deliberately slackened the pace a notch in the finale in a bid to mask the jour sans. For his part, Froome tried to convince his rivals that he was preparing an attack of his own.
"I tried to make it look like I was OK when in fact the truth is that I was really terrible on the last kilometres of the Peyresourde. If you look at the footage you will see I was out of the saddle quite a bit. I was looking into the faces of each of my rivals, trying to read them. They were thinking, 'Chris is trying to read me because he wants to attack, he's ready to go,'" Froome told the Sunday Times.
"By the time we get to the last kilometre of the Peyresourde I pulled off Mikel Landa's wheel, went to the side, looked back, giving the impression that I had lots of energy. If anyone had attacked I wouldn't have tried to go after them, just gone into time trial mode to get to the finish as efficiently as possible."
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