Chris Froome versus Tom Dumoulin: it’s a rivalry everyone’s getting excited about, including Froome himself. The Tour de France champion said on Saturday that, whether it’s at next year’s Tour or further down the line, he’s looking forward to a first proper face-off with the Dutchman.
Dumoulin, a natural time triallist, emerged as a possible Grand Tour winner at the 2015 Vuelta a España and he provided emphatic confirmation this year with overall victory at the Giro d’Italia. Froome collected a fourth Tour de France title in July with a minimum of fuss, but Dumoulin may well have positioned himself as the greatest threat to the Sky rider’s hegemony.
“He’s definitely part of the new generation of GC riders. He’s someone who I haven’t gone head-to-head with properly in the GC sense, so I definitely look forward to that challenge,” said Froome, speaking in Shanghai ahead of the China Criterium. “It’s good for me to have someone to really push me like that as well.
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“It certainly wasn’t a surprise to me when he won the Giro. Before the race I actually had a bet with some of my friends that he would win, and he proved me right. I saw that coming. It’s been coming for some time now.”
Dumoulin would certainly bring a fresh challenge to Froome. After blowing the competition away on summit finishes en route to victory in 2013 and 2015, Froome has made precious few gains in the mountains in the last two years, instead using the time trials to comfortably pull away from competitors such as Romain Bardet.
Against the world time trial champion, however, that would no longer seem to be a viable approach, and with Dumoulin there’s the added complication – as he proved at the Giro against the likes of Nairo Quintana and Vincenzo Nibali – of him being a tough nut to crack on even the biggest mountains.
Giro d’Italia
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