Tour de France 2018: Clean and cleared, Chris Froome will inevitably still ride under a cloud as he chases history

Froome will be on Saturday’s start line in Vendée but through the rest of France can expect a reception about as warm as the urine sprayed in his direction by one disbeliever in 2015

Christian Prudhomme, the Tour de France race director, spent the past three weeks attempting to block Chris Froome from participating in the race. He had decided Froome’s appearance would damage the image of the Tour, and he told Team Sky on several occasions that the 33-year-old Briton’s registration would be rejected.

So the news that Froome has been cleared and will not face suspension for exceeding the permitted limit of Salbutamol during last year’s Vuelta a Espana has made things rather awkward. Suddenly Prudhomme and the Tour organisers (ASO) must perform an almighty U-turn and welcome their reigning champion with open arms: invite in the post, an apologetic email sent, perhaps balloons and a giant banner to be unfurled on his release from purgatory: ‘Welcome home, Froomey’.

“All that for this,” was a rather miffed Prudhomme’s reaction to the UCI’s timing. “We have been constantly repeating, since we became aware of the abnormal control like everyone else on December 13, that a quick response was needed.

“(World cycling president) David Lappartient said that there would be no answer before the Tour ... and so we decided, three weeks ago, because we needed the response of an independent authority, to write to Chris Froome, Sky and the UCI to tell them that we would use Article 29 of the Tour de France regulations [to protect the image of the race].

“It comes at the last moment, it’s a shame, and it is especially sad that it took – even if I can understand that the experts of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the UCI and the lawyers of Chris Froome have worked hard – a wait for months because the non-response during all this time has obviously caused indecision, doubt, and therefore suspicion.”

Suspicion has long been a lingering theme around Froome’s exploits in the Tour de France. Each fresh achievement draws a new round of scepticism to be fended off. Froome will be on Saturday’s start line in Vendée but through the rest of France can expect a reception about as warm as the urine sprayed in his direction by one disbeliever in 2015. The following year Froome punched a fan in the face in an act of self-defence and presumably catharsis; he might require considerable restraint to avoid repeated scenes this July.

To his supporters this has been a vindication of faith in their man. He has been absolved, no asterisk next to his Vuelta 18 title, now with the chance to join an elite band of legendary riders to have won the Tour de France five times. But to his vehement detractors the saga has added to the cloud of controversy around Team Sky’s grand project, of which Froome has been the chief beneficiary.

Froome himself never seemed in doubt about the outcome of the case, appearing at the start of the Giro d’Italia like a boy who knew something we didn’t. He has always been extremely confident in the power of his lawyer Mike Morgan, the 2017 sports lawyer of the year who had successfully represented Lizzie Armitstead, Maria Sharapova and the Premier League footballer Mamadou Sakho.

The wider question thrown up is that of anti-doping as a rigorous preventative measure. How is it that Froome’s expensively assembled team of lawyers and scientists were able to explain this problem away when apparently similar cases resulted in bans? Why were Alessandro Petacchi and Diego Ulissi sent down for lesser levels of the same drug?

Chris Froome will be riding to win his fifth Tour de France (AP)

Wada concluded Froome’s sample result of 2,000ng/ml of Salbutamol, double the permitted level, was “not inconsistent with an ingestion of Salbutamol within the permitted maximum inhaled dose” when taking into account variables such as dehydration and illness. It is a conclusion which rather makes a mockery of Wada’s current upper limit of 1,000ng/ml.

We probably won’t get a look at the full details of the 1,500-page document Froome’s lawyers submitted on 2 June. The UCI’s message is loud and clear: our experts have examined the evidence, and our experts have concluded Froome did no wrong, so move on. Have trust in a process you cannot see.

And so Froome will compete in the Tour de France, ASO will avoid the potential ignominy of crowning a man under a cloud of suspicion, and world cycling will avoid have another one of its most gloried riders stained by suspension. Except of course, that all of them have been a little worn down by another episode in the sport which has drawn the eye away from the cycling with a weary sigh. Welcome home, Froomey.