A Look At The Main Candidates Of Sports Personality Of The Year 2015 (Part Two)

Today we take another look at some of the main participants in this years Sports Personality Of The Year 2015.

TYSON FURY

Tyson Luke Fury  is a professional boxer who fights at heavyweight. In November 2015, he defeated Wladimir Klitschko to become the WBA, IBF, WBO, IBO and The Ring magazine unified heavyweight champion. Fury was subsequently stripped of the IBF title for choosing not to fight their mandatory challenger, Vyacheslav Glazkov, upon agreeing to a rematch with Klitschko.

Having initially been denied the opportunity to fight for Ireland at the Olympic Games, he was permitted to represent both Great Britain and Ireland after tracing his family lineage to relatives in Belfast and Galway. Fury has represented both England and Ireland as an amateur, winning the ABA championship in 2008 before turning professional later that year. Currently undefeated, he is a two-time former British and English champion, a former European, Commonwealth and Irish heavyweight champion, as well as a former WBO Inter-Continental and WBO International heavyweight champion.

After winning the world titles he was nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2015 shortlist, but attracted significant criticism relating to statements he had made which were considered sexist and homophobic.

Background 

 

Born and raised in Manchester, England, Fury was born into a family of Irish Traveller heritage. His paternal grandfather was from Tuam, County Galway, which is also the birthplace of his father John Fury. His maternal grandmother is from County Tipperary and his mother was born in Belfast. His family has a long history in boxing; his father competed in the 1980s as "Gypsy" John Fury, initially as a bare-knuckle fighter and unlicensed boxer, and then as a professional boxer. He is a cousin of Irish WBO Middleweight World Champion Andy Lee He is also a distant relative of "self-styled King of the Gypsies" Bartley Gorman. His father named him "Tyson" after then-world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. In a double international duel against an experienced Polish team in 2007, the Irish team lost 12–6 overall; Fury, however, was victorious in both his fights in Rzeszów and Białystok. In another Irish match against the US, Fury won his bout by knock-out. He won a bronze medal at the AIBA Youth World Boxing Championships in 2006.

In May 2007, he won the EU Junior Championship representing England, and later lost to Maxim Babanin in the final of the European Junior Championships. As a junior, he was ranked number three in the World behind the Russians Maxim Babanin and Andrey Volkov, but lost out to David Price for a place at the Olympic Games in Beijing representing the United Kingdom.

Price was chosen for the 2008 Olympic team ahead of Fury due to Olympic rules restricting each country to one boxer per weight division. Fury also unsuccessfully tried to qualify for Ireland, and attributed his failure to qualify for the Olympics as his reason for turning professional, instead of waiting for a chance that might not have come in 2012.

This win gave the 24-year-old Fury a world ranking of 7 according to Boxrec,

Haye negotiations and fallout. Fury was due to fight David Haye on 28 September 2013. However, Haye pulled out of the fight on 21 September after sustaining a cut, which required six stitches, above the eye during training. The fight was originally postponed to 8 February 2014, however, Haye was forced to pull out of the fight with a career-threatening shoulder injury, and hinted at his retirement.

Fury vs. Chisora II and Hammer  

 

Fury was due to fight rival and heavyweight contender Dereck Chisora for the second time on 26 July 2014. However, on 21 July, Chisora was forced to pull out after sustaining a fractured hand in training. Belarusian Alexander Ustinov was lined up as Chisora's replacement in the bout scheduled to take place at the Manchester Arena, Fury pulled out of the fight after his uncle and former trainer Hughie Fury was taken seriously ill. However, Fury and Chisora rescheduled the rematch for 29 November 2014; Fury won the rematch.

Fury then went on to face Christian Hammer on 28 February 2015, and also won the fight when the fight came to a halt in the 8th round via RTD.

Title showdown with Wladimir Klitschko  

 

In July 2015, it was confirmed that Fury would take part in a World Heavyweight title showdown with Wladimir Klitschko for WBA, IBF, WBO, IBO and The Ring Heavyweight titles. Although the fight was meant to take place on 24 October 2015, Klitschko sustained a calf injury and so it was put back to 28 November 2015. For this match, he trained together with the highest ranked heavyweight kickboxers in GLORY, Rico Verhoeven and Benjamin Adegbuyi.

The fight took place in Düsseldorf, Germany, with Fury winning after twelve rounds by a unanimous points decision, with scores of 116–111, 115–112, 115–112. On 8 December 2015, the IBF stripped Fury of his title after he had signed a rematch clause against Klitschko prior to their fight which precluded him from facing the IBF's mandatory challenger Vyacheslav Glazkov, which meant he held the IBF belt for only 10 days.

Personal life  

Fury and his wife Paris married in 2009.

He is a supporter of Premier League football club Manchester United. He is a practicing Catholic.

In September 2015 Fury expressed a desire to run as an independent candidate to be the UK Member of Parliament for Morecambe and Lunesdale, opining that the government were too focused on immigrants and not enough on homeless people and those with drug and alcohol problems. He also suggested that Britain should leave the European Union.

   

Controversial comments

   

In 2013, Fury told an interviewer before his first fight at Madison Square Garden that he would “hang” his own sister if she was promiscuous. That same year he was fined £3,000 for calling fellow boxers David Price and Tony Bellew "gay lovers". After the 2015 controversy emerged, Bellew said that he was not upset by Fury and considered it wrong that people were pulling him down.

Shortly before winning the world titles in November 2015, Fury publicly argued that performance-enhancing drugs  should be permitted in boxing and other sports. He said: "Why don't they just make drugs totally legal in sports, then everybody would be taking drugs and then it would be fully fair then, wouldn't it? ... It's none of my concern really, but if the governing bodies want to do that then I think it would be a bit fairer because you've got all them people taking drugs and when you face a man who is not taking drugs it becomes unfair, doesn't it?”

After the world championship fight, he stated that he had been cautioned against potential cheating tactics by the Klitschko camp, of which he provided no evidence, and he would not even drink water in the locker room post-fight because of fears that he would be drugged.

The British Boxing Board of Control met on 9 December and agreed to summon Fury to explain his recent comments.

2015 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award nomination

After winning the world title he was named as a finalist of the 2015 BBC Sports Personality of the Year. His nomination ignited a lingering controversy which began even before the Klitschko fight, when Fury said: "There are only three things that need to be accomplished before the Devil comes home. One of them is homosexuality being legal in countries, one of them is abortion and the other is paedophilia. So who would have thought in the 50s and early 60s that those first two would be legalised. … For me, people can say ‘oh, you’re against abortions and you’re against paedophilia, you’re against homosexuality, you’re against whatever’ but my faith and my culture is all based on the bible. The bible was written a long time ago, wasn’t it, from the beginning of time until now so if I follow that and that tells me it’s wrong, then it’s wrong for me." Later, over 124,000 people signed an online Change.org petition saying that what they saw as his homophobic and sexist views made him an unsuitable recipient for the award. Asked directly if he was homophobic, Fury said: "No. Definitely not. I wouldn't be a very good Christian if I hated anybody. If Jesus loves the world, I love the world.”

Fury also stated that Olympic and world champion heptathlete, Jessica Ennis-Hill, a fellow contender for the BBC award, "slaps up good" and that "a woman’s best place is in the kitchen and on her back – that’s my personal belief." Fury responded to the controversy by denying he was homophobic and telling iFL TV that his critics could "suck my balls" - and labelled those who signed the petition as "50,000 wankers".

On 9 December, BBC bosses were fighting a frantic battle to save the Sports Personality of the Year awards, after a leading contender, Olympic athletic Greg Rutherford, threatened to pull out because of the controversy. Despite his disgust at Fury, Rutherford later agreed to stay in the award show. In a separate development, the Sports Journalists' Association withdrew an invitation to Fury to attend the British Sports Awards in London.

On 8 December 2015 the SNP's John Nicolson, a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, challenged the BBC over Fury’s Sports Personality of the Year nomination. On 9 December Greater Manchester Police confirmed that they were investigating an allegation of hate crime against Fury in relation to comments made about homosexuality on Victoria Derbyshire's BBC television programme. The Police soon reported that no hate crime, but only what they called a "hate incident", had occurred, so no charge would be laid.

CHRIS FROOME

Christopher "Chris" Froome  is a British professional road racing cyclist for UCI ProTeam, who competed for Kenya until 2008. A two-time winner of the Tour de France, he is seen as one of the most successful riders of the recent era. His mother's parents emigrated from Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England to Kenya to run a crop farm. Froome has two older brothers, Jonathan and Jeremy, who went to Rugby School in Warwickshire, England. 

After finishing primary school at the Banda School in Nairobi, Froome moved to South Africa as a 14-year-old to attend St. Andrew's School in Bloemfontein and St John's College in Johannesburg. He then studied economics for two years at the University of Johannesburg. It was in South Africa that Froome started to participate in road cycling. It was not until he was 22 that he turned professional. Froome competed in the road time trial at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, where he finished 17th, catching the attention of future Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford: "The performance he did, on the equipment he was on, that takes some doing... We always thought he was a bit of a diamond in the rough, who had a huge potential." Whilst representing Kenya at the 2006 Road World Championships in the under-23 category in Salzburg, Austria, Froome crashed into an official just after the start of the time trial, he finished in 36th place.

Professional career

2007–2010: Early years 

  

Froome turned professional in 2007, aged 22, with the South African team, Konica Minolta, withdrawing from university two years into his degree in economics. He competed from April to September for the Union Cycliste Internationale's World Cycling Centre  team based in Aigle, Switzerland, in the U23 Nations Cup. In May he rode his first stage race, the Giro delle Regioni, winning stage five, riding for WCC. In late-May he won stage six of the Tour of Japan, attacking from a breakaway in the fourteen-lap circuit in Shuzenji. In June he competed at the "B" world championships in Cape Town, placing second to China's Haijun Ma in the -long time trial. In July, he claimed a bronze medal in the road race at the All-Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria. On 26 September, he placed forty-first in the under-23 time trial at the world championships in Stuttgart, three minutes and thirty seconds behind the gold medalist, Lars Boom of the Netherlands.

Froome was introduced to the British-based, South African-backed, second-tier UCI Professional Continental team,, by South African Robbie Hunter, signing with them for the 2008 season. Over April and March, he rode the Critérium International, Gent-Wevelgem and the Ardennes classics. He made his Grand Tour debut when he was named in 's squad for the Tour de France – becoming Kenya's first participant, in which he finished 84th overall and 11th among the young rider classification. In October Froome finished fourth overall in the Herald Sun Tour in Victoria, Australia. His performances in 2008 attracted the attention of British Cycling coach, Rod Ellingworth, who believed Froome had potential. Froome said: "Although I was riding under the Kenyan flag I made it clear that I had always carried a British passport and felt British. It was then we talked about racing under the Union Flag, and we stayed in touch." He then participated in the Giro d'Italia, in which he came 36th overall, and seventh young rider classification. In July he won a minor one day race, Anatomic Jock Race, in Barberton South Africa. In September 2009, it was announced that he was to join British cycling team,, for the 2010 season.

Froome rode the 2010 Giro d'Italia. On stage nineteen, he was suffering with a knee injury and on the Mortirolo Pass he was seen holding on to a police motorbike. He had been dropped by the gruppetto, and intended to reach the feed zone and retire from the race. While holding the motorbike, the race commissaire ordered him to stop and withdraw from the race. During his first season with Sky, his best result was at the Tour du Haut Var, where he finished ninth in the overall standings. He also finished second at the 2010 national time trial championships, showing his ability in the discipline. In October he represented England at the Commonwealth Games, in Delhi, coming fifth in the -long time trial, two minutes and twenty seconds behind the winner, Scotland's David Millar.

2011: Breakthrough 

  

The early highlights of Froome's 2011 season were top fifteen finishes in the Vuelta a Castilla y León and the Tour de Romandie. Froome had a mixed Tour de Suisse, riding with the lead group on some mountain stages, whilst losing time on others, and finishing ninth in the final time trial.

Froome entered the Vuelta a España as the main domestique for Bradley Wiggins in the mountains. After being inseparable from Wiggins throughout the first week, he gained credit for his ride in stage nine, helping close down an attack on the final climb and finishing in fifth place, three seconds behind Wiggins, leaving both in the top 20 overall. The following day in stage ten, however, Froome out-rode Wiggins to finish second in the time-trial behind 's Tony Martin and to take an unexpected lead in the race. Froome averaged 405 watts over 56 minutes in this time-trial, proving himself as a strong time-trialist. During stage eleven he helped his team to neutralise some attacks, but soon found himself unable to follow the main group. However, he managed to hang on second in the general classification.

After losing the jersey to Wiggins on stage eleven, Froome continued to ride in support of his leader, and on stage fourteen helped to drop rivals including rider Vincenzo Nibali and Joaquim Rodríguez  on the final climb. Wiggins credited his lead to Froome, in a stage which also saw Froome rise back up to second in the standings. The tough stage fifteen which ended on the Alto de L'Angliru saw Froome lead the chase to stage winner, Juan José Cobo of, who took the overall lead at the end of the day. Froome proved stronger than Wiggins, finishing ahead of him in fourth place but forty-eight seconds behind Cobo, to retain second overall.

On stage seventeen, Froome attacked Cobo from the summit finish, but Cobo fought back, catching Froome in the final 300 metres, only for Froome to attack again to win the stage and arrive one second in front of Cobo. As a result of time bonuses, Froome reduced Cobo's lead to thirteen seconds. Froome was unable to reduce Cobo's lead any further and finished second overall in the Vuelta, equalling Robert Millar's second places in the 1985 and 1986 editions of the Vuelta and the 1987 Giro d'Italia, as the best finish by a British rider in the Vuelta and the highest finish by a British rider in a Grand Tour.

After the Vuelta it was revealed Froome had suffered throughout the year from the parasitic disease bilharzia, having been diagnosed in 2010. It has since been speculated that Froome may have had the parasitic infection for much of his adult life and during his early cycling career. The discovery and subsequent treatment of the illness has been used to explain Froome's rapid rise to form during 2011. On 16 September 2011, Froome signed a new three-year contract with Sky. He was part of the Great Britain team that helped Mark Cavendish win the world road race championship. In October, Froome finished third overall in the first edition of the Tour of Beijing, 26 seconds behind overall winner, Tony Martin.

2012: Super-domestique

   

The early part of Froome's 2012 season was wrecked by illness. He withdrew from the Volta ao Algarve with a severe chest infection, and blood tests showed his bilharzia parasites had returned. In March, Froome was involved in a collision with a 72-year-old pedestrian on a training ride. He returned to racing in May, for the Tour de Romandie, where he helped Wiggins win the race overall, before participating in a training camp on Mount Teide in Tenerife with several of his teammates.

Froome was selected in the Sky squad for the Tour de France. After placing 11th in the opening prologue, he suffered a punctured tyre from the end of stage one and lost over a minute to overall leader Fabian Cancellara . On stage three, Froome was involved in a crash on the hill-top finish in Boulogne-sur-Mer, and was sent flying into safety barriers, but was unharmed and was given the same finishing time as the winner, Peter Sagan of . On stage seven finishing atop the Category 1 climb to La Planche des Belles Filles, he protected his leader Wiggins and was part of a small group that came in sight of the finish line. Cadel Evans  attacked, Froome jumped on his wheel and won the stage with an advantage of two seconds over his leader and Evans. Froome took the lead in the mountains classification. With that operation, he took the polka dot jersey, but lost it to Fredrik Kessiakoff of the very next day. Froome finished second to Wiggins on stage nine, an individual time trial, and moved up to third overall.

On stage eleven to La Toussuire, Froome rolled all day in the mountains in front of the pack or near it, setting the pace for his leader Wiggins but was forced to take two rests during the flatter, faster sections, dropping in behind Wiggins' group leaving Wiggins out in front. Froome recovered well however and in a surprising event, due to what appear to be confused team orders, he attacked the remaining group on the last climb, just as Wiggins was easing off after the hard chase to catch Nibali away from the finish line. He subsequently received the order from his team manager to hold back and wait for yellow jersey Wiggins. He finished third of the stage after a late burst of speed. For his efforts in assisting Wiggins, Froome was lauded in the media as a super-domestique. On stage seventeen, Froome and Wiggins finished second and third respectively on the final mountain stage to further cement their general classification positions, although Froome repeatedly waited for Wiggins on the final climb, costing him the chance of winning the stage. On stage nineteen, a time trial, Froome finished second to Wiggins, mirroring the overall standings. Wiggins went on to win the tour with Froome second, becoming the first two British riders to make the podium of the Tour de France in its 109-year history.

Froome, along with Sky teammates Wiggins, Cavendish and Ian Stannard, as well as Millar  were selected for Team GB's road race at the Olympic Games. Froome and Wiggins also contested in the time trial. Froome won bronze in the time trial, with teammate Wiggins taking gold. Froome was selected as Team Sky's leader for the Vuelta a España, where he aimed to go one better than 2011 and win his first Grand Tour. He lay third after the first mountain finish on stage three, and moved up to second on stage four after leader Alejandro Valverde crashed, losing 55 seconds to the chasing group. Froome moved down to third during the stage evelen time trial siteen seconds off leader Rodriguez. He lost another twenty-three seconds on stage twelve putting him 51 seconds down. He struggled through the rest of the second half of the race. He ended up finishing fourth overall, finishing over ten minutes behind the race winner, Alberto Contador.

2013: First Tour de France victory

   

Froome's 2013 season began at the Tour of Oman, where he took the race lead on stage four, finishing second to Rodríguez on the summit finish of Jebel Akhdar. He finished the race taking the overall classification, his first stage race win of his career, 27 seconds ahead of Contador, with Cadel Evans twelve seconds further back. He also won the points classification. Froome then led at the Tirreno–Adriatico in March, where he won the fourth stage after countering an attack by Contador, rider Nibali and 's Mauro Santambrogio on the final climb to Prati di Tivo. Froome lost time on eventual winner Nibali on the penultimate stage, finishing the race in second place. Froome returned to action, and to the top step of the rostrum, in the Critérium International. After finishing fourth in the short second stage time trial, he powered away on the last climb of the third and final stage to win, and overtake teammate, and second place on the stage, Richie Porte in the general classification.

In late April, Froome won the prologue of the Tour de Romandie in Le Châble, Switzerland, taking the leader's jersey, with a six-second gap over Andrew Talansky of . He remained in the yellow leader's jersey throughout the entire race, increasing his advantage over his rivals to almost a minute with a strong performance in the penultimate queen stage. Near the end of that stage, after losing his support riders in the peloton, Froome gave solo chase to breakaway rider Simon Špilak and after catching him, worked with the Slovenian to maintain and extend their lead on the peloton and improve their general classification standings. Špilak won the stage, which catapulted him into second place in the overall, with Froome on his wheel in second. In the final individual time trial stage Froome took third place, increasing his lead and winning his third race of the season.

Froome's final warm up race before the Tour de France, for which he was favourite, was the Critérium du Dauphiné at the beginning of June. He sat second overall behind 's Rohan Dennis after coming third in the time trial on stage four. Froome won stage five after countering a late attack by Contador, to take the race lead by 52 seconds over teammate, Porte. Froome helped Porte solidify his second place on stage seven, and on stage eight the pair rode away from their rivals on the final climb, with only Talansky  able to follow. Froome took second on the stage behind Alessandro De Marchi of, who had attacked earlier, to secure overall victory, with Porte completing a one-two, 58 seconds back. This was Froome's fourth major stage race victory of the season, out of the five he had entered.

Froome's Tour de France got off to a nervy start as he crashed in the neutralised section of the first stage on the isle of Corsica, but he was unharmed and avoided going down in the large crash towards the end of the stage. After staying out of trouble for the rest of the first week, Froome won stage eight, the first mountain stage of the race, finishing on Ax 3 Domaines, by launching an attack after teammates Peter Kennaugh and Porte had brought back an earlier attack by 's Nairo Quintana, and distanced most of Froome's rivals. Froome's winning margin on the stage was fifty-one seconds over Porte, and one minute twenty-five seconds to Valverde  in third. This gave Froome the overall lead in the Tour for the first time and the lead in the mountains classification. On the following stage however, Froome was left isolated as no teammates were able to follow repeated attacks early in the stage by, and riders. Despite being without any team support for most of the stage, Froome was able to successfully defend his lead by following several attacks by Quintana and Valverde. Froome then finished second in the individual time trial on the twelfth stage, twelve seconds behind Tony Martin, to put further time into all of his rivals. However, on stage thirteen Saxo-Tinkoff caused a split in the peloton due to strong crosswinds, which Froome missed. 's Contador and Roman Kreuziger, and Laurens ten Dam and Bauke Mollema of all made the selection, and took 69 seconds out of Froome's lead, although Valverde lost over ten minutes and slipped out of contention.

Froome won stage 15 finishing on Mont Ventoux. Kennaugh and Porte dropped all of the leading contenders except Contador on the early part of the climb, before Froome surged clear of Contador with remaining and caught Quintana, who had attacked earlier in the climb. The pair worked together to put time into their rivals, before Froome dropped Quintana with remaining and soloed to the finish. This gave Froome a lead of four minutes and fourteen seconds over Mollema in second place, with Contador a further eleven seconds back. Froome also regained the lead in the mountains classification. He won the stage 17 time trial, finishing the course from Embrun to Chorges in 51 minutes 33 seconds, with Contador coming in nine seconds behind him, in second place. Froome defended his lead during the Alpine stages, extending his overall league as Mollema and Contador dropped back.

Froome won the general classification on 21 July with a final time of 83 hours, 56 minutes and 40 seconds, 4 minutes and 20 seconds ahead of second-placed Quintana. He was also King of the Mountains for six stages, however he ultimately finished second to Quintana in that classification. Froome's overall win and stage victories in the Tour win put him at the top of the UCI World Tour ranking, with 587, ahead of Sagan on 409. Partly because the 2013 Tour was the first since Lance Armstrong's admission of doping, such questions were asked of Froome. He insisted that he and his team were clean and stated that the questioning saddened him. Froome was drug tested 19 times during the Tour

In October Froome was named winner of the prestigious Vélo d'Or award for the best rider of the year.

2014: Defending champion 

  

As defending champion for the first time, Froome started his 2014 season by again winning the Tour of Oman. After some minor illnesses and back problems, which meant he missed Tirreno–Adriatico, his next stage race was the Tour de Romandie, again as defending champion, which he won by twenty-eight seconds ahead of Špilak, with the two riders placing first and second in that race for the second consecutive year. He also won the final stage of the race, an individual time trial, finishing a second faster than three-time time trial world champion Martin. To celebrate the Tour de France moving from Britain to France in July, Froome rode a bicycle through the Channel Tunnel, becoming the first solo rider to do so, and one of few cyclists ever to have done the journey. The Crossing took under an hour at a top speed of 40 mph — faster than most cross-channel ferries.

Froome crashed out on the fifth stage of the Tour de France after falling three times over two days, putting an end to his defence of his Tour de France crown. He came back in time to duel with Alberto Contador on the Vuelta a España, being very competitive in the mountains but losing some time on the first individual time trial. Before the last stage, a short  flat time trial, Froome was in second place with a deficit of 1:37 on the Spaniard. He finally finished second.

2015: Second Tour de France victory

   

Froome decided to begin his 2015 racing season in February at the Ruta del Sol in Spain, after winning the previous two years of the Tour of Oman. He was joined there by Contador, both riders competing in this race for the first time. Having lost eight seconds to Contador in the first day's individual time trial, Froome ceded even more time to him on the third stage, when the Spaniard broke away from the peloton during the uphill finish to win the stage. Now 27 seconds behind Contador, with only one mountain stage remaining, Froome seemed likely to end up second. But on the penultimate fourth stage, which had a steep uphill finish, Team Sky worked hard and dropped all of Contador's Tinkoff-Saxo teammates as the leaders reached the final climb. After some punchy moves by his support riders, Froome began a solo attack. For a short time Contador was able to follow, but he soon fell away. Froome won the stage and was able to open a 29-second gap on second-place Contador by the finish line, enough to overcome his deficit and take the overall race lead by two seconds. The final fifth stage was relatively flat, with no likely chance for Contador to make up his deficit, allowing Froome to collect his first stage race victory since May 2014. This was the third year in a row that Froome won his season opener stage race. He later participated in the Tour de Romandie in hopes of winning it for the third year in a row, but had to settle for third place in the general classification after winner Ilnur Zakarin and second-place Simon Spilak, both of.

In June, he was in full preparation for the Tour de France as he participated to the Critérium du Dauphiné. He won stage seven, the queen stage, thanks to two consecutive attacks on the last climb of the day, one to shed the leading group and another one to get rid of Tejay van Garderen, who had resisted the first one. On the stage, he repeated the exploit of winning solo while putting enough time into van Garderen to win the overall classification as well.

Froome entered the Tour de France as one of the favourites for the overall win. After a strong performance on the Mur de Huy Froome took over the race lead by one second from Tony Martin, although he subsequently lost the jersey to Martin on stage four to Cambrai. Froome refused to wear the yellow jersey after Tony Martin abandoned the race whilst still leading due to a broken collar bone sustained on stage six. Froome then received the yellow jersey at the end of the seventh stage by virtue of being in second place overall. During the evening of the first rest day of the Tour, it emerged that the team had had some of Froome's data files hacked and released onto the internet. As the Tour entered the second week of racing stage ten saw the first mountains stage, the summit finish of La Pierre Saint-Martin, where Froome would go on to take the stage win, putting significant time into his general classification rivals. During the remainder of the race the team faced intense scrutiny regarding their dominant performances; Porte was punched in the ribs by a spectator in the Pyrenees, and Froome had urine thrown at him by another spectator. Much of the blame for the poor spectator behaviour has been levelled at the French press for 'irresponsible' reporting. Team Sky then released some of Froome's power data from stage ten in an attempt to calm claims of blood or mechanical doping. Froome maintained his lead during the final week's Alpine mountain stages, although he lost 32 seconds to Quintana, who had emerged as his principal rival, on the penultimate mountain stage to La Toussuire, and another 86 seconds on the final summit finish on Alpe d'Huez, giving him a lead of 72 seconds over Quintana in the general classification. In addition to winning the race overall he clinched the mountains classification, becoming the first British rider to be crowned the Tour's King of the Mountains since Robert Millar in 1984. He was also the sixth rider to take the yellow and polka dot jerseys in the same year and the first to do so since Eddy Merckx in 1970.

In August, Froome confirmed that he would follow up his Tour win by riding in the Vuelta a España, becoming the first Tour winner to take on the Vuelta in the same year since Carlos Sastre in 2008. Froome lost time on his rivals on the first summit finishes, though he gained back some time on the summit finish of stage nine. Stage eleven was a mountainous stage in Andorra that Froome had described as "the toughest Grand Tour stage I’ve ever done". He crashed into a wooden barrier on the approach to the first climb of the day; he continued to the end of the stage, though he lost significant time on all his rivals. The following morning, an MRI scan revealed that he had broken his foot in the crash and he withdrew from the Vuelta.

Personal life 

 

Froome met Michelle Cound, a South African of Welsh origin, through South African rider Daryl Impey in 2009. Froome and Cound moved to Monaco together in 2011 and got engaged in March 2013. The couple married in November 2014. On 15 December 2015, the couple welcomed their first child, a son named Kellan. Froome dedicated his 2013 Tour de France win to his mother, who died of cancer five weeks before his Tour debut in 2008.

Tipster Street.