Froome is no stranger to media attention.
Although the cyclist and his team continued with their successful Tour, questions still surrounded his performance and whether he, or the team, were riding clean.
During the week, Paul Kimmage of the Sunday Independent, David Walsh of the Sunday Times, Professor Ross Tucker of Science of Sport and Antoine Vayer all spoke to Off the Ball about the questions surrounding Froome and the Tour.
The Question of Froome
The Sky Team releasing data is not really the norm but they released it this week for a couple of reasons.
A French television station featured a physiologist who calculated and discussed Froome’s power output, which they assigned at just more than seven watts per kg of body weight, a figure which Team Sky disagreed with. The issue of Froome's weight also came into play here, something else which apparently differed across reports.
On top of that, Antoine Vayer released a video apparently showing what was claimed to be Froome’s power, cadence and pulse rate for that Mont Ventoux climb back in 2013.
And so the team responded with releasing the data on Chris Froome’s physiology.
The cyclist stated that he was unsure this would convince everyone his displays have been achieved through being a clean athlete.
"It really has been more of a sideshow than anything else," he said
"I'm not sure if numbers are going to fix everything, but certainly I feel as a team and myself, we're definitely trying to be as open and transparent as possible."
The relevance of the data
Professor Ross Tucker of Science of Sport has written about the subject and joined us on Off The Ball to talk about the relevance of the data.
Kimmage questions, Walsh defends
Following the release of the data,Sunday Independent writer and long-time anti-doping campaigner Paul Kimmage addressed the issue on Off The Ball and described it as a "shambles" and "utter mess".
He was critical of both the Sunday Times and Team Sky boss Dave Brailsford:
Walsh then spoke to Off the Ball the following night and defended his position:
Finally, the show spoke to Antoine Vayer, he was responsible for releasing the video, which he claimed was a leak.
Stephen Roche also contributed his thoughts to the show:
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
