Tour de France 2017: Boos ring out ahead of Froome’s Four de France

With 50,000 largely partisan fans packed into the transformed home of Olympique de Marseille, it was no surprise that the atmosphere for the start and finish of the all-important 22.5km time trial was pretty electric – and a good thing too.

Riding his fifteenth and final Tour de France, veteran Thomas Voeckler was given a raucous send off when he rolled down the ramp to rapturous applause. The cheers were perhaps even louder for Warren Barguil following the Frenchman’s dazzling displays over the past few weeks – winning on Bastille Day and on the Col d’Izoard while securing the polka dot jersey.

And it was all building to a crescendo – with the stadium erupting as Bardet set off on his mission impossible: overturn a 23-second deficit and become the first French winner of the Tour de France since Bernard Hinault in 1985.

Two minutes later and it was turn of Bardet’s obstacle to yellow to roll down the ramp – a man so often on the receiving end of abuse from the local fans since the first of his three (and counting) overall wins back in 2013.

Commentating for Eurosport, Carlton Kirby was shocked at how the atmosphere changed – with the cheers for “hero” Bardet suddenly turning into bellowing catcalls for Froome, the “arch villain”.

“It’s not nice,” Kirby said. “I’m listening to the auditorium and it’s started booing. Sean, that’s disrespect.”

“Very much so,” replied Sean Kelly. “And it’s not the first time we’ve seen it in this race…”

Indeed, last weekend Froome was booed by fans in the Massif Central as he chased Bardet after breaking a spoke on the road to Le Puy-en-Velay in Stage 15.

A similar scenario happened two years ago when Froome fought back after he had been attacked by Vincenzo Nibali moments after suffering a mechanical in the stage to La Toussuire – the same edition of the Tour when Froome was allegedly on the receiving end of a cup of urine.

If French fans are quick to abuse the man who has dominated their race in recent years, then Bardet has been quick to jump to Froome’s defence on Monday’s rest day.

"I heard that Chris Froome had been abused at times during yesterday’s stage,” he said. “I’m sorry about that. He is a champion and he deserves respect. I respect him as an opponent and he does not deserve that kind of treatment."

Those flocking to the Stade Velodrome clearly didn’t heed to Bardet’s request as Froome got his time trial under way to a cacophony of boos and jeers. It was as if – Kirby mused – Froome had just scored an injury time winner against l’OM (something he admittedly almost did around half an hour later).

The abuse didn’t stop within the confines of the stadium – with the boos ringing out as Froome scaled the top of the punchy double-digit climb of Notre-Dame de la Garde.

Of course, the French fans were in something of a dilemma once the two protagonists made their way back to the stadium. Having left two minutes apart, Bardet and Froome were pretty much neck and neck as they raced towards the finish.

The crowd knew that Bardet was approaching and they knew that their man needed to finish in less than 30’19 to keep his place on the podium from Froome’s Sky team-mate Mikel Landa – something he achieved by just one slender second, to the obvious delight of the relieved fans.

But the sudden arrival of Froome just a handful of seconds behind meant those cheers changed to jeers quicker than Theresa May on election day.

Of course, the reasons for booing a four-time Tour champion are far more complicated than his passport or team – but those burdens certainly don’t help. After all, 32-year-old Froome was but two months old when the host nation last won the Tour, while the French fans have never taken to the robotic racing-by-numbers approach of Team Sky, nor the high-cadence, elbows-and-knees climbing style of their leader.

It's worth remembering, perhaps, that Monsieur Chauvin was a Frenchman, and the chauvinism ringing out from the side of the road and the back of a stadium may be something inherent to a nation - coming from the top-down.

This is, indeed, a race where the entirely French panel awarded the Super-Combativity award this year not to Thomas De Gendt, the indefatigable Belgian breakaway specialist who notched more than 1,000 kilometres out ahead of the peloton throughout the Tour, but instead the new French darling Barguil.

Barguil undoubtedly had a brilliant race - but his attacking exploits were rewarded with his two stage wins and his polka dot jersey; the whole point of the Super-Combatif "Prix Antagas" is arugably to commend a rider whose swashbuckling exploits are as regular as they are fruitless. De Gendt rode clear of the peloton for almost a third of the entire Tour: if that's not combative then nothing is.

While the Lotto Soudal rider won the public vote, but he only picked up one of the six votes cast by the jury - with four going to Barguil and one going to the Frenchman's Sunweb team-mate, the green jersey Michael Matthews.

But back to the main topic of discussion and those boos for Froome...

Sky swapping their jerseys from black to white this year was a transparent attempt for the team to wipe the slate clean after a turbulent few months of criticism and innuendo – and while this year’s Tour was seemingly more open than ever, Froome's team did still suck the life out of many stages through their high-tempo riding on the front of the peloton, and would have led the race from start to finish were it not for a little wobble by Froome on the steep ramp at Peyragudes.

Winning over the locals, it certainly helps having a likable Frenchman in Nicolas Portal as a directeur sportif, while the addition of a French rider to their roster over the winter – the climber Kenny Elissonde – was meant to endear Sky more to French fans. Quite how the locals will react if – as it has been suggested – Barguil joins the team from Sunweb, is anyone’s guess.

But until Froome starts losing the Tour and – perhaps more importantly – a Frenchman starts winning it, then the relationship French fans have with Team Sky and their leader will continue to sour.

Of course, there is always the slim possibility that this whole episode has been a gross misunderstanding…