Topsport coach Paul Van Den Bosch taken a look at Tour de France winner Chris Froome's test result. The British Team Sky rider has made a move to prove that he is riding clean by publishing the data. Van Den Bosch is on the same line: "If you win the Tour twice, you're an exceptional rider. The data come from a very good rider with a very high potential, but they are not alarming or suspicious," he tells Sporza.
Therefore Van Den Bosch is convinced that Froome can no longer be under suspicion for the use of banned substances.
Most of the published values, such as a threshold power of 420 watt, are not even very exceptional for an ordinary stage race rider.
"If we look at Froome's absolute values of Froome, then there is certainly nothing suspicious. I can right away show values for 10 or 20 riders that are very similar and that are not suspicious in my eyes.
"If we divide by Froome's body weight (67kg), we arrive at 6.25 watts per kilogram. These are very high and very good values. But are they values that are not recorded for other riders? Absolutely not."
Froome marks himself out from less good riders due to his VO2 max value, an almost entirely innate fact that shows how much oxygen your body can transport to your working muscles.
Froome scores a very high 88, though he is not the only one. "I suspect that there are several riders in the peloton with a very high VO2 max. Ultimately, Froome did not win the Tour with an advantage of half an hour. He was less than two minutes ahead of Quintana. Then you can assume that Quintana also has a very high VO2 max."
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