It’s sad for a champion to leave the stage through such a small door. This is what happened to Christopher Froome. The four-time Tour de France winner (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017) has been without a team since November 15.
In a simple Instagram post, his company that will be renamed next season, Israeli team-Premier Tech, announced that they are not renewing his contract which was due to expire on December 31. Far from a surprise.
Recall that the team’s co-sponsor since 2022, the Quebec company Premier Tech, announced that it was ending its commitment after a season marked by many controversies, especially during the last Tour of Spain where pro-Palestinian demonstrations occurred one after another.
Froome was part of a group of riders whose teams split which also included Pascal Ackermann, Riley Pickrell, Matthew Riccitello and Michael Woods who retired aged 31.
Big pay, no performance
A word that we can definitely also associate with Chris Froome from that day even though there has been no official announcement. Telling him he hasn’t made a decision yet.
But it’s hard to see who could sign a rider who turned 40 last May and hasn’t won for months. It is also difficult to see which team could offer him a salary as large as that paid by his former employer who hired him in 2021. He was paid up to 4.5 million euros per year. However, its revenue drops to 3 million euros in 2025.
Christopher Froome is still in the top 10 highest paid riders in the peloton, despite his completely anonymous form, far from his best. In 2025, for example, he only entered second-class races: Tour of Poland, Tour of Sibiu, Tour of Switzerland, Tour of the Alps and Tour of UAE without having competed there.
Most importantly, he has never competed in any Grand Tour, although along with Anquetil, Gimondi, Merckx, Hinault, Contador and Nibali, he is one of 7 riders in history to win the Tour, Giro (2018) and Vuelta (2011, 2017). His final appearance was at the Tour in 2022, which he did not complete.
To his credit, the English player has experienced the same suffering in the last few seasons. He never really regained his level since a serious fall in 2019 at Dauphiné where he escaped with open fractures to his femur, elbow, hip, spine, sternum and multiple broken ribs. Last August, he fell again during practice at the Var, ending up in the hospital with a pneumothorax, broken ribs and a fractured lumbar spine.
59 days in yellow
If he were to announce the end of his career in the coming days, Christopher Froome would remain one of his sport’s greatest champions. He spent 59 days in yellow on the roads of the Tour in a Sky team then it was Ineos who destroyed the race for too long.
Long criticized for his undivided dominance, Christopher Froome remained closer to the public in the second half of his career. We especially remember one scene, at the 2021 Tour: in 166th overall, more than an hour from Pogacar, he struggled in the rain to climb the Col du Pré in the Alps.
The Englishman then almost fell: his derailleur broke and his bike became unusable. The former king of the peloton was alone and helpless, with no teammates or sports director to help him. Froome was forced to walk alone up the hill alongside his broken machine in a section without spectators. It was another team that lent him a standard bike, not even his size, to complete the stage.
The only consolation he received came from the same audience who, a few years earlier, had poured urine on his face. This time he was encouraged by “Come on Chris”. It was as if he was human again, at last.
