Cycling: Chris Froome wins Tour de Romandie

Briton Chris Froome increased his prospects of a maiden Tour de France title by winning the Tour de Romandie stage race in solid fashion yesterday.

Team Sky’s Froome, runner-up in last year’s Tour after riding as one of champion Bradley Wiggins’s domestiques, believes that he will be the team leader this year in France although that remains to be made clear by the management.

Froome, who claimed the overall leader’s yellow jersey after the opening uphill time trial in the Swiss race, emulated the feats of Cadel Evans and 
Wiggins from 2011 and 2012, both riders going on to win the Tour the same year. The Kenya-born rider consolidated his lead with second place in Saturday’s mountainous stage and was third in yesterday’s final time trial which was won by German Tony Martin. In finishing first, he added to this season’s Tour of Oman and Criterium International victories.

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“It has been a really good week for us and I am really happy with my condition now in the build-up to the Tour de France,” Froome said.

“Every race I do now is a good test for me, to see exactly where my condition is and what I need to work on. It has been a really good experience for me this week. It is a good omen, but the Tour is still two months away and I need to do a lot of hard training before then.”

The Tour de France starts in Corsica on 29 June.