Next season, he'll be six years past his last Grand Tour victory, but Chris Froome continues to harbour ambitions to end his career with one last hurrah at the biggest stage races in the world.
38-year-old Froome, who heads into his fourth season with Israel-Premier Tech in 2024, has told former Ineos teammate Geraint Thomas that it would be "magic" to be able to rack up one last stage victory or even repeat his third place atop L'Alpe d'Huez at the 2022 Tour de France.
Speaking on the Geraint Thomas Cycling Club Podcast, Froome outlined his ambitions for the upcoming season and revealed a project that he's working on away from training and racing – a cycling academy in his birth country of Kenya.
He said that having grown up in the East African country, he's seen the athletic potential there first-hand, adding that giving Kenyan cyclists the resources and opportunities that a cycling academy offers could see riders from the country burst onto the scene as those from Colombia have.
Froome's cycling academy would join projects proposed by Ineos Grenadiers and Team Amani in the country.
"Growing up in East Africa in Nairobi, I used to run cross-country back there and any time we did inter-school cross-country or anything, I'd just get killed by the Kenyans," he said.
"They're obviously the best long-distance runners in the world. There was always a part of me during all those years I was winning the Tour that kind of made me feel a little bit ridiculous and inadequate knowing that there are much better athletes – in the true sense of an endurance athlete – than me back in East Africa. But they just haven't had access to bikes, cycling doesn't really exist there. They have no equipment, no training, no structure at all.
"It has always been at the back of my mind wanting to do it, and I think now, as I get towards the end of my career, it's the perfect time to start setting things up. Basically, we're looking at starting a Chris Froome Cycling Academy out at the base of Mount Kenya, up at altitude at 2,000 metres.
"I genuinely think that, within a 10-to-15-year time frame, we could see similar to how Colombians have burst onto the scene in the last decade. I truly believe we're going to get a load of East Africans bursting through."
Looking for 'magic'
Froome missed shot at the Tour de France following a 2023 season which saw him miss out on Grand Tour selection for the first time since the 2019 season cut short by his life-threatening Critérium du Dauphiné crash.
"I'd like to do a lot more stage racing. This year I did a lot of one-day races building up to the Tour and I can comfortably admit I'm not a one-day rider," Froome said. "I want to get into a good stage race programme with blocks of training and maybe go back to old-school a little bit, what I was always used to.
"It would just be magic to be able to win a stage somewhere or find myself in a break that goes to the finish. Like last year coming third on Alpe d'Huez – that was pretty magic. It would have been better if Tom Pidcock wasn't there, but just experiences like that, to be able to get back there.
"The Tour's the Tour," he concluded. "You know what it's like. Even if you win the Giro or Vuelta, it's not the Tour de France. A win in the Tour for me now would just be super special, or even being closer with the GC guys, that would be a pretty special way for me to finish off."
Froome, whose last pro win remains the 2018 Giro d'Italia capped by his famous Colle delle Finestre solo move, said that the last several years of his career have been characterised by "ups and downs", including the long recovery process from that 2019 crash.
He called his 2023 season "a bit of a write-off" with no Grand Tours on his calendar. He noted that another shot at the Tour is a big motivator for him heading into 2024, also detailing another reason that keeps him racing.
"I think it's just kind of different motivations now for me," Froome said. "My kids weren't old enough to remember me winning or being up there, so that's kind of a motivation now – to be able to show them what I'm capable of doing.
"A lot of people ask me 'Why do you still race? You've won all the Grand Tours a few times or whatever. What are you doing?' But for me, that wasn't the way I wanted to go out. I want to get to the end of my career and be like 'I've given it everything' and if that means I'm not going to win another bike race again or put my hands in the air, then so be it.
"I'm going to look back and be like 'Listen, I've given it everything.' I'm not going to stop now and be like 'Yeah, you know, I could have carried on and maybe could have come back to a higher level or maybe not. I don't want to have those questions. I just want to give it everything I've got, see where I get to and maybe even carry on a little bit longer."
