Bernard Hinault urges Tour riders to strike if Chris Froome takes part

Bernard Hinault, the five-times winner of the Tour de France, has called on riders in this year’s race to strike in protest at the presence of Chris Froome, who is awaiting the outcome of an adverse analytical finding for the asthma drug salbutamol.

Since news of the test result from a sample taken during his victory in the Vuelta a España in 2017 was published in the Guardian in November, Froome, the defending Tour champion, has maintained his innocence of any wrongdoing and reiterated his certainty that he will be cleared when the case is resolved.

Speaking to the newspaper Ouest-France, Hinault, who no longer has an official role with the Tour de France organisers ASO since his retirement last year, said the riders should refuse to start when the race begins in the Vendée on 7 July. “The peloton should put its feet to the ground and say, if he is starting the race, we won’t start.”

On Thursday morning Team Sky issued a statement, describing Hinault’s comments as “disappointing”, “factually incorrect” and “irresponsible and ill-infomed”.

Hinault was known as a spokesman among the riders during his career which lasted from 1975 to 1986, and during his first Tour de France exactly 40 years ago he became celebrated for leading a riders’ strike after the organisers attempted to make them race three stages in a single day.

“Christopher Froome should not be at the start of the Tour,” Hinault said. “Quite simply because he has tested positive, for me this is not an abnormal test. As always, people do not take the decision when it should be taken. The people at the UCI should have said, you have been caught, so you should not be racing.”

Salbutamol is classified in a different way to other substances in that it is permitted up to a certain threshold – which Froome’s A and B samples exceeded – after which a rider has to explain the result. Until the case is resolved an athlete is permitted to race, although teams who are members of the voluntary Movement for Credible Cycling, which does not include Team Sky, go a step further and impose a ban on its cyclists.

There is no indication when Froome’s case will be resolved. The Tour organisers have called for it to be done as soon as possible but the head of the UCI, David Lappartient, has said he fears the outcome will not be known before the start of the Tour.