Four-time race winner Chris Froome has not been selected for the Tour de France this year, his Israel-Premier Tech team confirmed on Friday.
The 38-year-old, who has competed in 10 Tours de France throughout his career, will therefore not take the start line in Bilbao on 1 July. It will be the first edition a fit Froome has missed since 2011.
Instead, Israel-Premier Tech will line up with Vuelta a España stage winner Michael Woods as their leader. The Canadian will be joined in the team's eight-man squad by Guillaume Boivin, Simon Clarke, Hugo Houle, Krists Neilands, Nick Schultz, Corbin Strong and Dylan Teuns.
In a statement, team boss Kjell Carlström said: “It was a tough decision to select our Tour de France team this year but we feel we selected eight riders best suited to fulfilling our performance objectives.
“The fact that we had a difficult decision to make when looking at our long list shows the strength and depth of our rider group, and unfortunately we could not select everyone. We carefully looked at the necessary roles to fill when it comes to hunting for stage wins and chose our eight riders accordingly.”
Froome is considered as one of the greatest GC riders of his generation, winning the yellow jersey in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017.
In a recent interview with French outlet DirectVelo, the Brit revealed he had been struggling with a minor tendon injury at the start of the year, but that the Tour remained “the ultimate goal”.
“It’s the race in which I’ve had my nicest feelings, where all the best riders in the world compete in their best form,” he said. “Obviously I’m not going to go to the Tour to fight for the overall, but if I can try to go for a stage win, that would be great.”
At last year’s race, Froome climbed to an impressive third atop Alpe d’Huez on stage 12, having been part of the day’s breakaway. Still, the 38-year-old has not won a race since 2018, when he claimed his last Grand Tour title at the Giro d’Italia.
Froome has only missed two Tours de France in the last decade - the 2019 and 2020 editions - after he crashed into a wall in a course recon at the 2019 Critérium du Dauphiné. He suffered fractures to his sternum, neck, femur, elbow and ribs, and also lost four pints of blood.
Last year, he withdrew from the race in the third week with Covid.
