Chris Froome of Britain wins Tour de France for second time

Alex Duff

Jul 27, 2015 – 6.00am

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Chris Froome won the Tour de France for a second time in three years, crossing the finish line in Paris after covering more than 3,000 kilometres in three weeks.

The 30-year-old Englishman, who was born in Kenya, won by 1 minute, 12 seconds over Colombia's Nairo Quintana, who gained more than a minute on Froome Saturday. Spain's Alejandro Valverde was third. Andre Greipel of Germany won the final sprint Sunday on the Champs Elysees avenue as the sun emerged after wet conditions earlier in the day.

Froome also earned the polka-dot jersey of the King of the Mountains, the sixth rider to win both that and the leader's yellow jersey and the first since Eddy Merckx in 1970.

Team Sky rider Chris Froome of Britain, the race leader's yellow jersey, celebrates his overall victory on the podium. Reuters

The yellow jersey "is special, very special," Froome said on the podium. "I understand its history, good and bad. I will always respect it, never dishonor it, and I will always be proud to have won it."

Froome cemented his lead on the first of seven mountain stages on July 14. Such was Froome's dominance in that stage to La Pierre-Saint-Martin ski station in the Pyrenees that he spent most of the rest of the race defending himself against speculation about doping and even using an engine concealed on his 6.8-kilogram (15 pound) Cicli Pinarello SpA bike.

A few days after his solo breakaway, one spectator threw a cup of urine at the leader, yelling "doped" in French. Froome, who hasn't failed a drugs test during his career, said the action was "unacceptable on so many levels." After dealing with that vitriol, Froome defended a series of attacks by Quintana, two-time winner Alberto Contador and 2014 champion Vincenzo Nibali.

Froome, who rides for Team Sky, gives the U.K. squad bankrolled by broadcaster Sky Plc and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. its third victory in four years. Bradley Wiggins was with the team in 2012, when he became the first British winner. Both Quintana and Valverde ride for Telefonica SA's Movistar team.

The race winner gets 450,000 euros ($492,000) in prize money -- a payout that race organizer Amaury Sport Organisation hasn't increased for the last decade. Traditionally, the winner shares the cash with his eight teammates. The first-placed rider typically might also get a $1 million bonus from his team on top of his salary, according to Miguel Madariaga, a former manager of the Euskaltel team.

Hours before the cyclists reached Paris, police fired on a car that tried to crash through a barricade put up for the race, Associated Press reported.

Froome started riding a mountain bike on a potholed road near Kenya's capital Nairobi with his mother driving alongside him. In 2008, he rode his first Tour de France, finishing 84th, on a team sponsored by Barloworld Ltd., a machinery distributor near Johannesburg.

In Froome's first year with Sky in 2010, his career was set back when he contracted schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease also known as bilharzia, from drinking contaminated water on a visit back to Africa, VeloNews website reported in 2011.

The disease, which went undiagnosed for a year, affected his performance and he was initially offered less than 100,000 pounds ($155,000) -- below the average pro rider salary -- to stay at Sky in 2012, according to Richard Moore, author of a book about the team, "Sky's the Limit." That year, after shrugging off the illness, he helped Wiggins win the Tour and began to show he was the strongest rider in the mountains.

Bloomberg