Do we like them?

Do we like Chris Froome?

Our score: 6 out of 10. Nothing harmful of his own turned up and he has backed young African riders, but he says little outside cycling, so the picture is thin.

Froome was born in Kenya and made his name far from the usual European cycling pipeline. By 2013 he was already talking about starting a foundation to help cycling in Kenya and Africa, which says something about where his head was even as he was climbing the ranks.

The résumé is huge. Four Tour de France wins, two Vueltas and a Giro, mostly with Team Sky and later Team Ineos, plus Olympic time trial bronzes in 2012 and 2016 and a world championships bronze in 2017. Late in his career the luck turned: a broken collarbone at the 2025 UAE Tour, then a training crash in France that he did not come back from.

His big brush with trouble was the 2017 Vuelta, where he returned an adverse test for the asthma drug salbutamol. After a long saga, cycling's governing body, the UCI, closed the case in July 2018, citing the anti-doping agency WADA's position, and he was cleared to ride the Tour. Whether you read that as the system working or as a very convenient ending depends on how much you trust the rules around the drug, but the official finding was that he did nothing wrong.

On the harm check, I found no campaigning against LGBTQ+ people, no conspiracy theories, no anti-vax or climate-denial material and no dodgy projects in his own words or acts. He is a cyclist who mostly talks about cycling, so the honest answer is that the record is thin rather than spotless. Searches for his views on trans people, women or migrants came up empty.

The recent news is a quiet exit. After months of coyness, he confirmed in July 2026 that he had retired, telling The Athletic that the fall wasn't how he wanted to end, but that even then he knew it was over. No stoush, no scandal, just a rider calling it.

On the good side, Froome has backed Safari Simbaz, the charity run by his early Kenyan mentor David Kinjah, which helps kids from tough backgrounds get into cycling. Reports have listed him among its main donors and as someone who gives it kit. That is the sort of thing you do when nobody is making you.