Chris Froome's adaptation to the role of gregarious

• Classifications.This is the general

Please don't degrade yourself by doing the work of a servant.

Focus on the next season now.

Next year you can win again ».

This was what an anonymous tweeter told

a few days ago about

his role in this Vuelta.

One of many messages on the networks that would have gone unnoticed had it not been for the response of the British cyclist: "I would not ask any colleague to do something for me that I was not willing to do for him."

And although the phrase has an overwhelming logic in a team sport such as - although sometimes forgotten - cycling, it is also impressive.

Because whoever pronounces it is a winner of four Tours, two Laps and one Giro.

Leaving out the outlaw

, the best cyclist of the 21st century.

A champion that is difficult to match who, in his last race with his current team, Ineos, does not hesitate to relegate himself to the role of gregarious to help his teammate

win the Vuelta that he now leads - waiting for the time trial individual this Tuesday, 33.7 kilometers, the last two corresponding to the Mirador de Ézaro, a wall of 14.2%.

It is not easy to remember cases like that of Froome, examples of great champions who, before the sunset, readapted to a new role within their team.

and

retired still being the best cyclists in their respective teams.

The aforementioned Armstrong did it, for the second time, after having tried to boycott his colleague Contador, who was stronger at that time than he.

Perhaps the most similar example is that of

, who in recent years has accepted without problem working for another stronger leader in the great tours in which he has participated, before for

and

, now for

, although keeping room for individual shine.

The case of Froome, in short, is extraordinary, as witnessed by several of the scenes that he has starred in this Vuelta.

In the icy stage that ended in Formigal two Sundays ago, the Briton went down to the Ineos car to collect warm clothes for all his companions and distribute them later.

In the one last Wednesday, ending in Alto de Moncalvillo, he began to pull a peloton in which there were still five runners from Ineos, as if he were one more wheeler.

And on Sunday, it was the last Ineos that resisted at the side of Carapaz, hardening for him the climb to Cordal, the penultimate of the day before Angliru.

Leader of the protest and apologies

Everything is said, he has also been the protagonist of another moment of the Vuelta, during the feint of a sit-in that the peloton made in Villaviciosa.

Froome served as the leader of the protest - he will no longer be the strongest, but he is still the biggest fish in the aquarium - but after the stage he apologized to the Vuelta leadership for his attitude.

Apologies accepted, of course, because Froome, unlike the majority of Tour winners, has always given everything to honor the Vuelta with his presence and his desire to win it.

Finally, two weeks that highlight the humble, supportive and close profile that has always characterized the runner born in Kenya.

And all this is even more valuable considering that this Vuelta is his last career with Ineos, a team in which he has been a member for 11 years, before starting a new stage in the Israel Start-Up Nation.

In other words, it is on its way out and with nothing to prove or stripes to earn.

As of Sunday, when the Vuelta ends, his only and undisguised goal will be to try to get back to who he was.

Not an easy challenge at 35 years old.

His drastic drop in performance was marked by the very hard crash he suffered in June 2019, while acknowledging the Dauphiné time trial.

He crashed into a wall at around 60 km / h during a descent in which he lost control of his bicycle, causing fractures of his femur, right elbow, sternum and several ribs.

It reappeared in February, shortly before the pandemic hiatus, but has not even managed to get anywhere near its previous level.

So in the meantime, work like the hardest of the gregarious.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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