Froome: I’m lucky to be alive
Head-first smash would have killed him, say team
CHRIS FROOME has admitted he is lucky to be alive following his horror crash on Wednesday.
Froome remains in intensive care after suffering a fractured neck, fractured sternum, bruised lungs, fractured ribs, femur and elbow, plus a broken hip and losing four pints of blood after his highspeed collision in a practice ride before stage four of the Criterium du Dauphine in France. He faces six months on the sidelines.
‘I know how lucky I am to be here today and how much I owe to the paramedics and medical staff on the race,’ he said.
‘Whilst this is a setback — and a major one at that — I am focusing on looking forward. There is a long road to recovery ahead but that recovery starts now and I am fully focused on returning back to my best.’
Froome is not expected to compete again in 2019, but doctors admit they are ‘very happy’ with his progress.
‘This is obviously a tough time but I have taken a lot of strength from the support over the last three days,’ added Froome. ‘It has been really humbling.’
LAST Wednesday, Chris Froome and the Team Ineos squad arrived at the outskirts of this French commune. After three days of dreary rain, the sun was finally out and the mood appeared relaxed as staff set up bikes and gave the equipment one final inspection. There was nothing to warn of the traumas to come.
June’s Criterium du Dauphine is France’s second most prestigious stage race after Le Grand Tour and Froome — a three-time winner of the week-long event — came into it in decent form after a subdued start to the season.
But the significant litmus test for his form always lay in Wednesday’s time trial.
According to directeur sportif, Servais Knaven, Froome had not ridden the Roanne time trial in training and had only studied the profile through maps.
At 3.44pm, Froome grinned at local fans as he soft-pedalled his way from the start line.
Roughly an hour later, the first whisperings of a crash began to filter through.
Towards the end of his ride and, on what is an innocuous stretch of road, Froome took a hand from his handlebars to clear his nose.
He was still travelling at speed but until that point the wind had been relatively calm.
Within a blink of an eye, a strong gust took away his control and — without dropping any of his speed — Froome slammed into a wall outside a house.
His onboard bike computer told the story. Froome had been travelling at 54kph (33mph) and then made a dead stop.
As he lay on the ground, teammate Wout Poels immediately slowed. Right away, he knew how bad the impact had been. Luckily, a race doctor was sitting just 50 yards away eating her lunch and, according to Team Ineos, her first-aid efforts were crucial in the first minutes after the crash.
Soon, an ambulance was on hand, plus a local resident who helped, holding a drip for Froome, who lay dazed and confused on the ground, asking: ‘What happened, what happened?’
He would remain on the roadside for the next two hours.
Froome’s body, rather than his head, took the initial force of the impact and a source close to the team said: ‘I dread to think what would have happened if his head had hit the wall first not his body.’
Back at the Team Ineos bus, boss Sir Dave Brailsford relayed the facts as he had them. Froome’s wife Michelle had been informed; a French ambulance had luckily been close and had given Froome immediate care as he lay on the road; there is a suspected fracture to Froome’s right femur; and that — after an emergency trip to the local hospital in Roanne — he had been airlifted to a medical centre in Saint-Etienne.
As the immediate shock of the events began to sink in, some of Froome’s closest rivals began to open up about what they had seen. Irish rider Daniel Martin was just 20 metres behind Froome when the crash occurred and was left in a state of shock by it.
‘I stayed by the team car and asked if there was anything we could do but I thought it could have been much worse,’ said Martin. ‘I thought he could have been dead. To see something like that isn’t pleasant.
‘He blew his nose, the wind caught him and then he veered out in front of the team car. We didn’t see what happened but we saw him hit the wall. He didn’t have any chance to lose any speed.’
By the next morning, Brailsford confirmed his star rider had ‘internal injuries’, bruising to his lungs, compound fractures to his right leg and elbow and an injured hip. By Friday, a fractured neck and sternum had been added to his list of woes.
Froome will now spend up to six weeks in hospital as he starts the long road to recovery, with his 2019 campaign now over. His quest for a record-equalling fifth Tour de France title has been shelved for at least one more year.
Giorgio Gresta, the surgeon who operated on Froome’s elbow, believes the 34-year-old can make a full recovery. But the British rider now faces the greatest challenge of his career.