Le Monde: “ASO refuses to let Froome ride Le Tour”

According to French newspaper Le Monde, which has a decent reputation, ASO will not let Chris Froome start de Tour de France (which begins next week, apparently). Neither ASO nor Team Sky have made any official comments on the news.

Froome is of course the defending champion and four time winner. In May, he won the Giro. In last year’s Vuelta, he had a positive doping test, for salbutamol. UCI, because they’re UCI, have done fuck all about that for now. And that’s bothering ASO. “ASO is trying to prevent Chris Froome from starting TdF on 7 July”, according to Le Monde. “ASO apparently has forbidden Team Sky from putting Chris Froome in its team selection for TdF because there is still a doping procedure against him. ASO wants to protect its image*.”

ASO bases itself on the UCI rulebook bit that says “without prejudice to the disciplinary penalties provided for by the regulation, a licence holder or a team may be excluded from a race if he/it seriously blemishes the image of cycling or of the race. This exclusion can occur before or during the race”.

So there’s that. I’d argue that there’s a lot of guys to be booted from the peloton on that ground - hi Valv.piti! - but maybe that’s just me.

* that’s funny