In the event of no last-minute deflations in fitness or bone-breaking collisions, Chris Froome will ride across the Champs-Elysees on Sunday as champion of 2015’s Tour de France and the only British racer to have won the race twice. This was made possible by a Tour that was marred by high-speed crash, the throwing of abuse and urine at Froome as well as reports of an hacking of his Sky team’s documents that cast doubt on the validity of his win as well as a possibility of doping that refuses go away from the mountains.
There is the issue of 3,400km of bicycle racing against extremely motivated competitors. A victory in this tough challenge of endurance for humans is in reach. But what’s the rationale behind why Froome pushed his body to the limit in the pursuit of winning?
Are they just a unique type of cyclist that can be a winner on flats and in the mountains and also in individual and team time trials? Perhaps there is something more mysterious that makes a champion? The stories that athletes create and share in their autobiographies have become an important source of data for researchers who want insight to the identity of athletes in order to comprehend the mentality of champions. The autobiography of Froome The Climb gives us valuable insight into the process he used to create his own narrative.
Goal-oriented. Paris. Luke Ma, CC BY
Suffering
Froome recounts his experience from a thin Kijana (youngster) racing with his mentor on his native Ngong hills in Kenya to winning the race of 2013 in Tour de France. The story is comprised of a variety of intertwined stories, of which the predominant is a performance-based narrative. The term, invented by Kitrina Douglas and David Carless, involves the utmost dedication to sports and the priority of winning over everything else that could impact the mental health of an athlete as well as self-esteem and identity. It is also the most prominent narrative in Froome’s memoir; it is the dominant narrative in many autobiographies like the one from Olympic winner Michael Phelps.
Stories of pain define Froome’s performance story. In reality, his frequent repetition of the word”suffering” reminds the reader that suffering, especially when he rides, is the essence of his entire life. His Kenyan birthplace is famous for its top-quality athletes, but it has not had much success in cycling. It also has mountains. It is within these mountains where Froome grew his highly determined and focused strength. We have witnessed his unwavering determination, despite the odds, to become a multiple Tour winner. His decision is apparent in the face of nearly constant doping allegations from the French media and, more specifically, on social media and also in his reaction to the hurling of urine at him and the sweltering circumstances of the Tour.
It’s in the mountains that we can witness Froome’s reassurance in his suffering. It was the best demonstrated this year than at the finish in the hills in La Pierre-Saint-Martin when Froome attacked to gain over 1 minute on each of his main competitors.
Highlights from the official coverage of stage 10 from the stage 10 of 2015’s Tour.
Quest questions
Every person experiences adversity, and champions aren’t the exception. Still, it is their reaction to disappointment and distress that triggers the transformational processes that push their efforts beyond just dealing with it. This is evident in numerous autobiographies of athletes, including the personal memoirs of Olympic swimming champions Amanda Beard and Ian Thorpe, where the negative results, described in the context of “adversarial growth,” are the main focus.
They are more of a quest-oriented narrative that involves the challenge with adversity and the pursuit of significance, an explicit desire to find something positive in the challenges, and a denial of the report based on performance. Froome’s tale is one of adversity, and despite the hardships, he has achieved the ultimate victory. Froome had a vivid account of the harsh school environment, illness (bilharzia) and the death of his mother in 2008 when he was cycling in Spain and the disappointments in 2012 when Froome was given the job as Domestique in the absence of Bradley Wiggins, nurturing his team’s leader from the beginning from Paris ( with only the occasional mistake).
There was a lot of adversity in the lead-up to the second win; A broken wrist in the 2014 Tour resulted in the stage being canceled and no rematch of his victory in 2013. In contrast to Beard and Thorpe, however, Froome has never resisted the narrative of his performance regardless of the fact that the current cycling world has risks of its own.