Last week, defending Tour de France winner Chris Froome (Team Sky) was met with a dose of criticism from UCI president Brian Cookson for landing in Australia on Monday January 25, the day after the conclusion of the Tour Down Under race, thus declining the opportunity to participate.

“It’s an odd decision by Team Sky I have to say,” Cookson said when quizzed about Froome’s absence from the race, despite coming to Australia.

“It’s not a helpful decision but one understands why these teams sometimes make these decisions. Performance criteria will always overrule other criteria in certain teams and certain cases. It’s a long season and riders need to prepare in the best way, but certainly that was a puzzling decision to me.”

Yesterday Froome responded to the criticism levelled at him by saying he was puzzled that Cookson thinks he would start his season as early as the Tour Down Under, citing his absence from the Australian race for the past six years.

Commenting on Cookson’s remarks on Twitter, Froome said, “Puzzled why people would think I’d start as early as TDU? Last time I did was in 2010”.

Froome will kick off his season at the Sun Herald Tour in February following a block of training with Sky coach Tim Kerrison in Australia.

In the six years since participating in the Tour Down Under in 2010, Froome has pushed back his season until early February.