Seven-time Grand Tour winner Chris Froome has revealed that he is nursing a knee injury ahead of the start of the 2022 season.
The 36-year-old struggled to hit his previous heights last year following his devastating training crash in June 2019, which left him with fractures in his femur, elbow, ribs and neck.
Froome's right femur was broken in that crash during training for the fourth stage of the Criterium du Dauphine, and the four-time Tour de France winner has admitted he will be set back by a fresh issue in the same leg.
"For the last ten days or so I've been getting quite a lot of pain on the outside of my knee while I'm peddling," Froome said in a video on his YouTube channel.
"The scans have basically shown that I've damaged my TFL tendon (sic), which is where the IT band connects on the side of the knee.
"Unfortunately I think getting back into training these past couple of weeks I might have been a little bit too keen, pushing a little too much. This was after a few weeks off the bike and maybe the body wasn't ready to push that hard. It's flared up and caused a bit of inflammation.
"It's quite sensitive. I have to take the best part of a week off the bike completely before starting very gradually without loading it for the best part of two to three weeks after that.
"It's definitely a setback for me. I'm not too sure where I'm going to start the racing season. This is definitely going to push everything back slightly.
"It's unfortunate but I'm going to have to make the best of it and keep working on things that I can work on off the bike - make sure to do a lot of core work, strengthening muscles I can work on without stressing that tendon further."
Froome placed 133rd in the 2021 Tour de France following his switch to Israel Start-Up Nation from Team Ineos.
Ben Knapton
