Tour de France 2015: Someone threw urine at Chris Froome

The Tour de France is well underway, but there are some who are literally raining on leader Chris Froome’s parade.

While the Tour de France is an epic display of human agility, it also happens to be one of the most tainted sporting events on the sports calendar.

Doping scandals have rocked the cycling world over the years, the biggest of which being the Lance Armstrong scandal which retroactively wiped out his titles won. Armstrong isn’t the only cyclist to have been accused of doping though, and we’re seeing backlash from fans this year.

During the latest stage of the Tour de France, leader Chris Froome from Team Sky had urine thrown at him and was branded a ‘doper’ by whomever was responsible for the attack.

"Chris Froome, the current race leader, was branded “doped” and had a cup of urine thrown in his face during the 14th stage from Rodez to Mende, while Richie Porte and Luke Rowe were both spat at."

Team Sky has formally complained about the incident and has approached Tour de France officials about the safety of their riders — something they’re growlingly concerned about.

On the one hand, fans of cycling can’t be blamed for being upset that their sport is tainted — because it’s not like there’s a whole lot of hype around the world of cycling. This isn’t football, where an incident can be washed over by the excitement of the next week’s news cycle.

Then again, throwing urine at someone is extreme, and it’s not going to solve much of anything. People do crazy things in protest of whatever they object to in order to bring attention to the issue. Everyone knew that Lance Armstrong was doping for his entire career yet it took until well after he was retired to bust him.

You can call for change in extreme ways, but for a sport that is based on endurance, cycling likes to test the patience of fans when it comes to busting riders for doping.

More from Cycling

Home/Cycling