huge said:
No Giro in 2018 once again.
Even if I understand the variety of reasons behind the choice, he will always look an incomplete rider to me.
A true champion must give a serious go at all 3 GTs!
Merckx, Anquetil, Hinault... the ones he is proud to be mentioned with in the same sentence... they wouldn't have become the legends they are without their results in Giro and the Vuelta.
And to that category, in modern cycling, only Nibali and Contador can be included.
Is Froome the best GC rider of the present era?
I don't know. I can only say he is the best Tour rider of the present era. And that in no way makes him the best GC rider overall.
Not to mention that massive, enormous advantage of having a team like Team Sky supporting him.
Would he have won 4 Tours if in a different team?
Definitely not this year, in my opinion.
How does that compare with, for example, Contador winning 2015 Giro without a team?
I consider that a much bigger feat than this year Froome's win. Despite of it still being an enormous achievement.
Disagree with almost everything you wrote.
Of course he is the best GC rider of the era. Every time he has come up against the best in the world when it mattered most he has come out on top.
At the end of the day, the Tour is the Tour. For us all-year-round cycling fans we tend to forget how much the rest of the world values the Tour than the other GT's. We even end up preferring the other GT's and sometimes hope that the best riders will skip the Tour and ride the Vuelta or Giro.
But talk to any 'layman' on the street and it is a whole different story.
The Tour is everything. It
is cycling.
And undoubtedly, from all points of views, it is the hardest to win, never mind 4 times (having only tried to win it 4 times).
Nibali and Contador only won the Giro in years they forfeited on the Tour. And the former only has 1 Tour to his name and the latter 2 (officially), perhaps because of that.
To win the Giro/Vuelta by forfeiting a Tour victory is pointless. Winning 4 Tours is much more impressive.
Froome's palmares in GC's outstrips Nibali's for sure.
Greg Lemond won 3 GT's. Tony Rominger won 3 GT's. But Rominger - among non-cycling fans- is unheard of.
Even 1 time winners of the Tour are better known than multiple Vuelta/Giro winners.
Of course, Froome is not as complete a rider as Merckx or Hinault, but in modern day cycling it is impossible to replicate what they did. Cycling has become much more specialized and time, fitness, freshness and form much more marginalized. The differences between the main competitors become smaller and smaller as technology advances. This all makes Froome's 4 victories even
more impressive, despite it being obvious that he is not as complete a rider as Hinault and Merckx and never will be.