Peloton should strike if Chris Froome rides at Tour de France, says five-time champion Bernard Hinault

Bernard Hinault, the five-time Tour de France champion, has suggested the peloton go on strike if Chris Froome rides at next month’s race.

Froome returned an Adverse Analytical Finding for the asthma drug salbutamol at last year’s Vuelta a Espana. The Team Sky rider faces a possible suspension if he cannot explain the elevated levels in his urine sample. He vehemently denies any wrongdoing.

The case was meant to remain confidential, but since it was leaked to media last December Froome and his team have been under pressure to self-suspend pending some sort of resolution.

Tour owners ASO have repeatedly called for a decision before this year’s race begins on July 7, although that appears unlikely.

Now Hinault has suggested the other riders in the peloton overlook due process and take matters into their own hands.

"The peloton should put its foot down and go on strike saying: 'If he's at the start, we're not starting,” Hinault told Ouest France. "The peloton is too nice. Others have been sanctioned, and everybody was in agreement. But they won't sanction him because they [Froome’s lawyers, allegedly] say it was an abnormal control? No, it's not an abnormal control… Ventolin, perhaps it's not a big thing, perhaps that's not what won him the Vuelta a España, we don't know. But it's banned, and that's it. The rules are the same for everybody…"

Salbutamol is not in fact a banned substance. It is a specified substance. Athletes are permitted to take it but only up to a threshold of 1000ng/ml.

This is not the first time Hinault has criticised Froome. Last month, after the 33 year-old won the Giro d’Italia, Hinault said the Briton did not deserve to be mentioned in the history books alongside himself and Eddy Merckx as the only riders to have won of all three grand tours consecutively.

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Those comments earned Hinault a rebuke from former US Postal sporting director Johan Bruyneel, who called the Frenchman "Mister Short Memory.”

Hinault was unimpressed by that intervention. ”Bruyneel told me to shut my mouth." Hinault told Ouest France. “He can shut it, because given what he did with [Lance] Armstrong, it would be better if he shut it…”

Meanwhile, Team Sky have welcomed the decision to dismiss a disciplinary case against their Italian rider Gianni Moscon following an incident at the Tre Valli Varesine in 2017.

Moscon was accused of intentionally causing the Swiss rider Sebastien Reichenbach to crash. He was found to have “no case to answer”, according to a statement from Team Sky.

"These were serious allegations which Gianni and the Team have always strongly contested,” read the statement. “We back Gianni and he has our full support.”