Partly agree with ZinovievLetter
I don’t agree that a comeback against the odds “survivor” narrative would be met with indifference. I agree that he’s more controversial than popular among fans, including casual fans, but great champions often suddenly become popular in any sport if they look like having a last hurrah some time after their career at the top seemed over. If he can be competitive at the top level again, many people who cheered against him through his best years will be cheering for him.
Agree, but Froome is not a 'lock' for TdF or any grand tour, just for being Chris Froome, or for sentimental reasons... Ineos have to be pragmatic about a rider likely to abandon.
French fans are bitter about Froome being in competition at all, because he should be serving a doping suspension. And they will not go from: tossing urine on Froome, protest banners at the
Grand Départ , telling him to get out of France, and booing him in the velodrome, one year, then hoping he will win the next. Begrudging respect for persistence through great adversity (for real this time), and therefore respectful enough not to attack Froome
The blood loss question appears to have been answered by curiosity seekers who went to the location :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZW3F2mE6rY
He wasn't bleeding to death on the scene. And the road there is not a 'technical descent', as some reporters assumed - it is a straight, steep urban street. Froome was fiddling with blowing his nose, with one hand off the bars of a TT bike, it was just a freak accident, like Wout Poels said. Hit the corner of the courtyard at 33 mph
"Une marche à suivre plutôt clair pour le chef de chirurgie Stéphanois : "Pour la suite, la rééducation va être longue. Il va falloir d’abord y avoir une période de consolidation osseuse qui est de minimum un mois et demi voire un peu plus pour des lésions complexes. Et ensuite une période de rééducation, de réathlétisation avec minimum une période de six mois en dehors de toute compétition."
For the chief of surgery Stéphanois, the course of action to follow is clear: ' From this point, the rehabilitation will be long. There must first be a period of bone reconsolidation which is at a minimum six weeks, and even a bit longer for complex fractures. And then, a period of rehabilitation, re-training in sport, with at a minimum six months away from all competition."
So Froome is out until March 2020 at the earliest... in theory he could be back in competition for the 2020 late spring warmup --> Dauphiné --> Tour de France sequence.
Doomsayers could be proven wrong
On the other hand, why would Froome be included in TdF squad when it's not in their interests ... personal whim of Ratcliffe to outweigh strategic good sense ? He knowingly bought Chris Froome's baggage when he bought the team... maybe Ratcliffe does subscribe to the redemption narrative, who knows