It’s official, the four time Tour de France champion, Chris Froome, will participate in this year’s Vuelta a Espana. His main intention is to become the first cyclist in the last 22 years to ever win both, Tour de France and the Spanish Tour in one season.
The last time someone was able to take both victories was back in 1995, the first time Vuleta a Espana was moved from April to August/September.
After winning the most important Tour in the world back on Sunday, Froome is now aiming to become the king of the Tour’s double which starts on August 19 and ends on September 10. It will take place in Nimes and end in Madrid.
Chris Froome has confirmed he will ride in this year’s Vuelta a Espana in pursuit of a historic double
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— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 27, 2017
Almost there…
Vuelta a Espana is part of the world’s three biggest cycling tours among the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia. And Froome knows the importance since he has been able to almost taste the victory three times before only taking the second place.
“I’ve got the opportunity and I’m certainly going to go for it. The Vuelta is a race I love – it’s vicious but it’s three weeks that I enjoy.” – Froome said.
“I’ve come second three times now and I’d love to win. To win both the Tour and the Vuelta in one year would be absolutely incredible.”
Some of the biggest threats Froome has to face in this year’s Vuelta a Espana include Romain Bardet, Alberto Contador and Fabio Aru, all having their eyes on the big price.
When asked, the team Sky’s director, Dave Brailsford, admitted to be pretty confident on Froome’s talent and skills saying he is capable to win both tours.
“There’s no reason why not. We’ve got four weeks to the start of the Vuelta,” Brailsford said.
“We’ve got a couple of races in between but we’ll dust ourselves down a little bit and go and do it all over again.”
