How will the years of Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana be remembered? The pair shared the Tour de France podium three times between 2013 and 2016, the former the top step, the latter second or third. There was a time when Quintana seemed the most likely to break the Team Sky hegemony, with his surge up Alpe d’Huez in 2015 putting a second Froome yellow jersey in peril. Froome was seen as one of the greatest ever, somewhat justifiably.
A decade on, that feels very distant. The Tadej Pogačar era has shifted the goalposts for what the best bike rider in the world can be, while Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard, to name but two, seem like much more complete cyclists than Froome and Quintana ever were. The pair won nine Grand Tours between them, and Froome was the last rider to win all three Grand Tours, and held all three titles at once, something beyond the current greats.
