Opinion: Old meets new in fruitful Alpe d’Huez alliance between Chris Froome and Tom Pidcock on the Tour de France

“It was pretty nice getting across with him,” an almost starstruck Tom Pidcock said after he was quizzed about his opportunistic collaboration with Chris Froome en route to winning Stage 12 of the Tour. “We worked well together. He’s a legend and I just beat him up Alpe d’Huez. Maybe he’s not quick as he once was, but he’s still Chris Froome, isn’t he?”

Fifteen years may separate Britain’s latest Tour stage winner and the nation’s only multiple Tour champion, but for large swathes of Thursday’s 165km ride through the high Alps, the pair were on an equal footing in the here and now.

Pidcock was just 13 years old when Froome finished seventh on Alpe d’Huez on his way to securing the first of four Tour titles. Almost a decade on, two riders at opposing poles of their careers united on the descent of the Galibier with one shared goal: getting up the famous 21 hairpin bends at the end of the day before everyone else.

If that was the ultimate target, it was still a distant dream. When Froome attacked from the peloton on the Galibier there was still 135km remaining of the stage. It was not the first time the 37-year-old had tested his legs on the Tour – not the first time, even, that he’d tried his luck in Stage 12 – and most viewers expected to see another short-lived attempt to rekindle the legs and form of yesteryear.

But Froome held on over the summit of the Galibier, and his bid to join the escapees further down the mountain was given a massive boost by the timely arrival of Tom Pidcock – the young tyro who had joined Ineos Grenadiers the season after Froome packed his bags and left.

As Pidcock came bounding down the hill at breakneck speed, it must have stirred memories, as Froome dug deep to latch on, of his own descending masterclass in 2016 when, at the peak of his powers, the then two-time Tour champion tore down the back of the Peyresourde, hugging his top tube all the way to Bagneres-de-Luchon as he took yellow and cemented his grip on a third title.

With Pidcock in such inspired, daredevil form, Froome had the perfect ally in his bid to join the leaders – even if it must have been quite the struggle sticking to his back wheel. Indeed, once they had managed to bridge over, Pidcock simply zipped on by in pursuit of Neilson Powless after the American had opened up a gap himself.

The way in which Pidcock had surged past Matis Louvel on the descent and then, later, chastised the other Frenchman in the break, Anthony Perez, for not pulling hard enough on the Croix de Fer was an early indicator of how much the 22-year-old debutant wanted a maiden Tour stage win.

When Pidcock threw down the hammer six kilometres from the summit of the second climb, he whittled down the nine-man break to five riders. Invigorated by the unfurling of events, Froome was still in the mix on what was fast becoming his best day in the saddle since his horrific career-threatening accident in 2019.

Pidcock was the driving force of the move – providing the necessary injections of pace going uphill and forcing his fellow escapees to take risks on the descent. Anything to ensure that the returning yellow jersey group – driven by the relentless Jumbo-Visma machine – never got near enough for the man in yellow, or indeed his foil in white, to contemplate going for the win.

A six-minute advantage at the start of Alpe d’Huez stacked the odds in the break’s favour – although you never know with the likes of Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar behind. Froome, who twice wore yellow on Alpe d’Huez but never won on the iconic climb during his reign at the top, must have started to dream about an extraordinary comeback triumph – and can you blame him?

That Froome is still competing in the Tour is a victory in itself – not simply because of the injuries he sustained three years ago, but because of a constant barrage of mockery from keyboard warriors on social media, a nasty witch-hunt that would have made lesser men buckle under the relentless barrage of sniping.

In a way, the anachronism of a Froome win on Alpe d’Huez – as poignant a story as it would have been – may have belittled the very struggle he has endured these past years. It would also have underestimated the power of Pidcock, who proved that what goes down at whirlwind speed can also go up pretty fast, too (albeit not as fast as the 100km/h he clocked on the descent of the Croix de Fer).

It was fitting, given how he’d taken grip of the stage by the scruff of its neck, that no one else from the break had even a remote sniff of a chance on Alpe d’Huez. Pidcock was the man who put in the first and only dig, dropping Neilson Powless and Giulio Ciccone with 8km to go, then leaving Louis Meintjes and Froome battling for second place.

With this show of strength beyond his years, Pidcock became the youngest ever winner on Alpe d’Huez four years after team-mate Geraint Thomas became the first British winner on the legendary col.

It’s difficult to guess where Pidcock goes from here. At this stage in his career, Froome was still riding for Barloworld and was four years away from his first professional win. Sure, Pogacar won the Tour at his first attempt when he was a year younger than Pidcock – but didn’t do so in the same year as winning an Olympic mountain bike gold medal and a cyclocross world championship title. Pogacar had also been racing on the road far longer than Pidcock.

Comparing the two stars at this stage is futile for they are two very different riders who came into road racing from very different trajectories. But seeing Pidcock win on Alpe d’Huez after such an all-round polished performance – and moving back into the top 10 of his debut Tour in the process – suggests that, with the right focus, the sky could be the limit for this incredible talent.

With team-mates Thomas moving up to third in the GC and Adam Yates back into the top five, it was a day to celebrate for the race’s Britons on, er, Bastille Day. Isn’t the Fourteenth of July the day the French are meant to shine? On the French national holiday and on arguably the most iconic climb in Tour de France history, there were no home riders in the top 10 as Pidcock – a rider as French as a Yorkshire pudding – came of age with a sensational solo win.

And yet, once the flare dust on Dutch corner had settled, it was Froome’s third place which arguably warmed the cockles as much as Pidcock’s triumph. For here was a rider who had been written off and ridiculed. During his years of domination, Froome often found himself the subject of abuse from the French fans lining the road. He now finds himself cheered by the locals who, seeing him battle on against all odds, have been won over by his tenacity.

If Froome didn’t have enough to complete the most unlikely comeback story since, well, Tiger Woods’ 47th place in the Masters this April, he did enough to earn the respect of many of the naysayers on the twisting road to Alpe d’Huez.

“I’ve been feeling better and better, and I’ve been wanting to star in a stage like today and to try my luck in the breakaway. I gave it everything I had. No regrets. I didn’t have any more I could give on that final climb,” Froome said in between regular coughs at the finish. “Tom Pidcock and Louis Meintjes had more in their engine than me today. Congrats to them for the stage today.”

A humbler and more honest former champion you’ll be hard-pressed to meet. With nine more stages of the captivating Tour left, there will be other opportunities for both Froome and Pidcock to shine between here and Paris.

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