Chris Froome moments we won't forget - From Ventoux chaos to Giro glory
Chris Froome stands as one of the greatest Grand Tour riders in cycling history, with seven Grand Tour victories that place him alongside Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Jacques Anquetil. The Kenyan-born British rider redefined stage racing dominance in the 2010s, forming an unstoppable partnership with Team Sky that got him into the record books. And yet, for all the control and calculation, it was never dull: with Froome, it rarely felt predictable, and his career delivered moments for the ages.
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The day Froome broke the Giro (2018)
Stage 19 of the 2018 Giro d’Italia from Venaria Reale to Bardonecchia was a brute. 184 kilometres, three big climbs, and the Colle delle Finestre waiting like a verdict. Simon Yates started the day in pink with the Giro looking wrapped up. Froome was fourth overall, 3:22 down.
If he wanted the maglia rosa, he needed something absurd. So he did it with 80 kilometres still to race. Froome attacked far too early, the kind of move that usually gets swallowed up later. The bunch hesitated, nobody quite believing what they were seeing, and Froome just kept driving into the gap.
On the gravel of the Finestre he was alone. Behind him, Yates was cracking, the jersey slipping away kilometre by kilometre. Froome crested with a big advantage, then dropped into the descent and never gave the race a second chance.
He arrived in Bardonecchia almost three minutes clear. In a single afternoon he blew the Giro apart, and wrote a stage people still talk about like it happened yesterday.
When the radio said wait (2012)
In 2012, Froome was meant to be Bradley Wiggins’ loyal domestique, shepherding his leader toward Britain’s first Tour de France win. On stage 11 to La Toussuire Les Sybelles, he did exactly that, right up until he didn’t.
As the road steepened in the final kilometres, Froome lifted the pace and rode straight off Wiggins’ wheel, dropping his own team leader and everyone else. He glanced back, saw the gap, and hesitated. The radio crackled: wait. Eventually he sat up, soft pedalled, and allowed Wiggins and the group to come back.
It was awkward in the way only a public power shift can be. Froome had just made Wiggins look rooted, exposing himself as the stronger climber. But Team Sky had a script and Froome, for all the tension, followed it. Barely. The frustration was visible, the message unmistakable. This wasn’t just a super domestique doing his job. This was a Tour winner in waiting.
Wiggins rolled into Paris in yellow with Froome second overall, but the moment at La Toussuire lingered. It had changed the story. Froome’s leadership bid no longer felt like ambition, it felt like gravity. By the time 2013 arrived, his shot seemed inevitable.
In the aftermath, the relationship between Wiggins and Froome frayed. Wiggins was said to have threatened to leave the race, citing a lack of trust, and the unease between them hung around for years, only thawing in the early 2020s.
The Mont Ventoux run (2016)
Nobody will ever forget stage 12 of the 2026 Tour de France to Mont Ventoux. A motorbike went down near the summit, Froome got caught in it, and his bike was wrecked while he was in yellow.
No spare bike in reach, rivals trying to get away, the race still moving. So he did the only thing left. He started running.
Seeing Froome sprinting uphill in cleats was surreal. Riders do not run up mountains at the Tour de France. It looked like the sport had briefly slipped its own rules, this tall figure in yellow pumping his arms and stumbling on the asphalt while everyone tried to process it. For a few minutes his Tour was right on the edge.
Eventually the officials got it under control. He was given the same time as the riders around him, which saved the yellow jersey in the moment. But the image had already landed. It was chaos, instinct, and pure stubbornness, played out in full view. He went on to win the Tour.
He went on to win the Tour. And for years after, Ventoux came with that image.
The downhill 'super tuck' attack (2016)
Another remarkable moment in that same 2016 Tour came on stage 8 to Bagnères-de-Luchon, when Froome pulled off the most unlikely attack of his career.He’d tried and failed to shake his rivals on the final climb of the Col de Peyresourde. Then, at the summit, he did the opposite of what a GC rider is meant to do. He attacked into the descent.
It shouldn’t have worked. Descents are where you survive, not where you win Tours. But Froome wasn’t waiting for permission. He dropped into the super tuck, chin low, perched on the top tube, and launched himself down the mountain. Behind him, the favourites sat up for a beat, half chasing, half trying to understand what they’d just seen.
It was reckless in the way only total commitment looks reckless. One mistake and the Tour ends in a ditch. Froome made none. He hit every line, pedalled every straight, and turned a descent into a gap.
In Luchon he had the stage, thirteen seconds, and the yellow jersey. The move was pure nerve, attacking where nobody attacks and in a position the UCI would later ban. He carried yellow to Paris, but it was that decision at the top of the Peyresourde that tilted the Tour.
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