"It's hard to leave the table when you're winning"
The 2018 cycling season is already being discussed with a tremendous announcement that Chris Froome, the current winner of the Tour De France in recent years has decided to take on the two most hardest bicycle races back to back, The Giro D' Italia and the Tour De France in a single year. This is coming off his success as having won the Tour/Vuelta double last year, also a difficult feat in of itself. The last person to do that was Marco Pantani in 1998, a good 20 years ago. Back then Pantani was loaded to the gills with an experimental drug that later became known to the world as EPO, the same drug that Lance Armstrong took during all of his tour victories. Marco Pantani was 28 at the time of his Giro-Tour victory year, a good 5 years younger than Froome will be by the time he starts the Giro next year. There is one fundamental difference between these two riders and I'm not referring or alluding to EPO use. Marco Pantani was a talent at a very young age. He had always been an accomplished rider even before he won his first Tour De France. Chris Froome blossomed later into his career. Chris Froome and I are a few months apart in age. It doesn't matter if you are the best athlete in the world, at a certain point age will catch up to anybody. Falls start to hurt more, recovery times slow down and a person may never fully recover from some injuries. So I'm not speaking as a world class athlete, I'm speaking as someone who is the same age as Chris Froome. It's time to rake it in, cash the chips and go home. It's hard to leave the table when you're winning, but that's the smart thing to do. It's not about matching records with the greats in the sport, because people will never know to what lengths those greats went to so that they could achieve those records. Stick around any longer and you will risk losing it all; your money, your success, your accomplishments, your credibility and your reputation.
Hubris sometimes doesn't allow people to know when to quit in a high risk game such as gambling, or in this case, professional cycling. They might as well be the same thing, because both require a poker face. If you call someone's bluff, then the game is over. So the question remains, if Chris Froome goes for one more Tour De France, will someone call his bluff? Unlike the last person that this happened to, Chris Froome is a likeable character that lays low and stays down to earth even when success comes his way. This has calmed any negative press that might be said of him to the point that even David Walsh, a famous reporter and Lance Armstrong whistle blower has come to his defense. Once in while, we will hear the suggestive mutterings of Greg Le Mond or Bob Roll implying that something fishy is afoot, but without the conviction or condemning language used against Lance Armstrong. Can Chris Froome manage to keep them silent for two more back to back grand tour victories?
I hope Chris Froome takes a lesson from the Miguel Indurain playbook. Win 5, cash in and go home. Indurain wasn't trying to one up Bernard Hinault, Jacques Anquetil or any previous 5 time Tour De France champs. He knew better, and was long gone by the time Marco Pantani, Jan Ullrich and Lance Armstong day-viewed with their superhuman cycling feats. He didn't try to rationalize a reason to go for number 6; he was confident that the world would remember him for his 5 victory contribution. He left with his money, his legacy and his reputation intact. He is the Michael Jordan of cycling, nothing negative or controversial can be said of him. Let's hope Froome follows in his footsteps. I really like the way Froome treats his teammates, the press and his rivals. At the end of the day that counts for a lot and even protects his career to some extent. Counting on that, let's see if Froome has it in him for a Giro-Tour double as well as a fifth Tour De France victory.
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