Given his colossal achievements, it's a pity that the reaction of many to Chris Froome’s reveal that he’s retired from professional cycling will be – “I thought he had already?”
Such is how sport quickly moves on.
Speaking in Barcelona ahead of the Grand Depart of the 2026 Tour de France, where he was working with Skoda as an ambassador, he told an audience that he had finally called it a day.
Aged 41 and without a team or race days in 2026, the writing had been on the wall for some time.
Four-time Tour de France winner Froome’s long fade-out from the pro scene began all the way back in 2019, the moment he ploughed into the side of a house while recce’ing the time trial of that year’s Criterium du Dauphine.
Airlifted to hospital, he was able to recover from a litany of serious injuries, including an open fracture of his right femur, but was never able to come close to finding his top form again on a bike.
He returned to racing at the start of 2020. In a generous interpretation, middling initial results could be put down to him finding his feet again. Israel-Premier Tech owner Sylvan Adams took that view when he offered Froome a big money, five-year deal.
It would prove to be negotiating wizardry by Froome’s agent to squeeze such generous terms out of Adams.
He’d never win another race, nor truly contend for one (even if his third place at Alpe d’Huez in the 2022 Tour almost rolled back the years).
Such slim returns from this huge investment by Adams was part of the reason relations soured between the two, and it was no surprise when Froome's contract wasn’t extended by the new-look NSN Cycling Team for 2026.
But that’s enough of all the negatives. The nature of Froome’s slow retreat from the sport left him without a proper goodbye and a retrospective of the many considerable achievements that made him the finest stage racer of his generation.
For all his reputation for robotic racing, Froome had a surprising penchant for going off-script far more than many of his contemporaries.
So, a little belatedly, here are our favourite Chris Froome rides from a stellar career.
2011 Vuelta a Espana: stage 10, time trial
The race that was mooted as a comeback for Bradley Wiggins after his collar bone break at that summer's Tour saw him eclipsed by his little-known team-mate and compatriot Froome.
Froome shocked everyone by finishing second behind the world’s best TT rider of the time, Tony Martin, and ahead of renowned testers Wiggins and Fabian Cancellara.
It was enough to send him into the red leader's jersey and, although short-lived, a strong ride on the monstrous Angliru on stage 15 saw him leapfrog Wiggins and become Team Sky’s best shot at winning the race.
Ultimately, he fell short to Spain’s Juan Jose Cobo on the road, but when the Spaniard was stripped of the title in 2019 for biological passport violations, it retrospectively became the first of seven grand tours that Froome would win.
2012 Tour de France: stage 7, La Planche des Belles Filles
The 2011 Vuelta had injected a hitherto unseen spanner into the leadership works of Team Sky. While Wiggins had been recruited as their great yellow jersey hope, the shock emergence of Froome – who had looked to be heading out of the door before his Vuelta breakthrough – opened up a debate about whether Froome could accept moving back into the junior role behind Wiggins.
That detente detonated on stage 7 of the 2012 Tour when, on the first mountain stage, Froome dropped his team leader Wiggins for a moment and went clear, before being ordered to return by his sports director.
Froome would go on to win the stage, opening up a few metres over Wiggins and Cadel Evans on the line. In reality, it had revealed a chasm between the two British teammates that would not be closed anytime soon.
2013 Tour de France: stage 8, Ax 3 Domaines
Team Sky’s mimicking of the tactics of Lance Armstrong’s corrupt US Postal team was a bold move and was part of the mix in the media’s dogged inquisition of the team, who had questions about the legitimacy of Froome’s performances.
Post-Armstrong, the Tour de France was an infernal place to be, with a media dead against being fooled again by rogue riders.
And here was a rider in Froome, who had apparently come from nowhere at the age of 28 to become perhaps the world’s best stage racer.
Team Sky’s US Postal tribute act was most closely seen on the opening mountain stage of the race to the Ax 3 Domaines ski resort in the Pyrenees.
His team set a searing pace on the final climb, before Froome and team-mate Richie Porte went away.
He only won the stage by just over a minute from his nearest GC rivals, but the reaction at the race at the time after witnessing such a savage performance was a resigned “shall we all pack up and go home?”.
2013 Tour de France: stage 15, Mont Ventoux
Froome had extended his lead to a seemingly impregnable 2:28 by the time the Ventoux summit finish rolled around, and this decisive performance on the Giant of Provence pretty much sealed the deal.
While he’d win the stage by half a minute over eventual second place Nairo Quintana, it was the ruthless dispatching of arch rival Alberto Contador further down the mountain that lives long in the memory.
Spinning an almighty cadence, in his signature jutting elbows, daddy-long-legs-on-a-hamster-wheel style, Froome dropped the Spaniard hard to announce there was a new sheriff in town.
2016 Tour de France: stage 8, Bagneres-de-Luchon
After two convincing Tour de France wins, Froome – and Sky – had cultivated an image (not undeserving) of a calculating, conservative, dare we say dull outfit, one that throttled rivals with their collective firepower and dominant leader.
It was perhaps that view that helped Froome to this out-of-character stage win. Seemingly sprinting for King of the Mountains points at the summit of final climb, Col de Peyresourde, Froome caught his rivals off guard by continuing the pace over the top and bombing down the descent into the finish in Bagneres-de-Luchon – and inventing a new descending style while he was at it.
He won the stage by only 13 seconds – enough to put him into yellow – but its bigger impact was to add new strings to his bow as a stage racer.
2016 Tour de France: stage 12, Mont Ventoux
Perhaps the single defining image that best sums up Froome’s indomitability in his peak years was not him riding alone up a mountain, but running up one.
High winds at the summit of Ventoux had seen the finish brought down the mountain to Chalet-Reynard. This left thousands of fans nowhere to go and a finish run-in free of the usual barriers that keep them away from the riders.
Traffic jams ensued, which saw Froome run into the back of a race motorbike and render his Pinarello unrideable.
Without a spare available, his never-say-die instincts kicked in and he set off on foot gingerly in his cleats, running up Ventoux in pursuit of his rivals.
In the end, his time was neutralised at the time of the crash, so no time would be lost, but it was an incident that told you everything you needed to know about Froome’s iron will and why it took him until 2026 to call it quits.
2018 Giro d’Italia: stage 19, Colle delle Finestre
As is apparent from this list, Froome’s career was largely defined by his performances at the Tour de France. Yet arguably he saved his greatest ever performance for the 2018 Giro d’Italia.
At the midpoint of the race he looked down and out, off colour and off form, and trailing race leader Simon Yates by over three minutes.
An impressive win atop Monte Zoncolan, perhaps Italy’s most-feared cycling climb, on stage 14 appeared at the time to be a consolation prize in a failed pursuit of the Maglia Rosa. Few outside of Camp Froome would have thought he could turn around the 3:22 deficit to Yates heading into stage 19 to Bardonecchia.
However, sensing Yates was tiring after losing time on stage 18, Froome threw the kitchen sink at the peloton, going clear on the wild Colle delle Finestre 80km from the stage finish and putting enough time into Tom Dumoulin to take an unassailable lead into the ultimate finish in Rome.
Never again would he scale such heights, but when you're up this high, where else is there to go?
