Chris Froome vowed to always honour the Tour de France yellow jersey after clinching his second title in Paris on Sunday.
The 30-year-old Team Sky leader made a veiled reference to the critics of his performance over a turbulent three weeks which saw Froome called a ‘doper’, doused in urine and spat at.
The climate of suspicion is a legacy of the drug-assisted era of cycling, but Froome insists he is clean after finishing one minute 12 seconds ahead of Nairo Quintana (Movistar).
“The maillot jaune is special, very special,” Froome said in his victory speech by the Champs-Elysees. “I understand its history, good and bad, and I will always respect it, never dishonour it and I’ll always be proud to have won it.”
Froome’s first Tour title came in the 100th edition in 2013, and the first since Lance Armstrong was stripped of his record seven titles.
Then he was subject to scrutiny, and the innuendo and interrogations resumed as he reclaimed the title after crashing out of the 2014 race with a fractured hand and broken wrist.
Asked what honouring the yellow jersey meant to him, added: “It’s pretty straightforward: In this day and age I feel someone needs to speak up for the cyclists of 2015 and of course I’m happy to do that.
“I’m in this position now. Someone’s got to take a stand, it’s time.”
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Froome finished 136th on the stage, arm in arm with his Team Sky colleagues, as Andre Greipel (Lot-to-Soudal) recorded a fourth win of the race. Mark Cavendish (Etixx-QuickStep) was sixth.
Controversy has dogged the 102nd Tour and a protester managed to trespass on to the finishing circuit, 2.4 kilometres from the finish, in what appeared to be a bed sheet with a message.
It came at the end of a day which began with a police incident when a car tried to break through the barriers surrounding the route on Sunday morning.
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Confirmation of Chris Froome’s victory – he finished 1 minute 12 seconds ahead of Colombia’s Nairo Quintana. pic.twitter.com/H8yMEwqlMI
— Sky Sports News HQ (@SkySportsNewsHQ) July 26, 2015
Froome secured the yellow jersey despite Quintana’s late attack to Alpe-d’Huez on Saturday, which left the 30-year-old Kenya-born Briton clinging on.
The 109.5km concluding stage from Sevres to the Champs-Elysees is traditionally a procession and saw Froome sip drinks and pose for photographs with his team-mates.
The rain which drenched the peloton at the start had disappeared by the time the riders reached the Champs-Elysees and the general classification times were set after the first passing of the finish line.
Froome, who became the second British winner of the King of the Mountains title in the competition’s 40-year history, still had to complete the stage to win, but he could avoid the sprinters’ teams battling for position.
