Paris — Tour de France organisers have formally blocked four-time champion Chris Froome from competing in the 2018 race, Le Monde reported on Sunday, but he is expected to fight the move. The Team Sky star has been under a cloud since he was found to have twice the permissible amount of the asthma drug Salbutamol in his system during September’s Vuelta a Espana, which he won. Five-time Tour winner Bernard Hinault, who worked for the Tour organisation for many years, called for the peloton to strike if the British rider lines up at the start of the 2018 event next Saturday. Froome responded on Wednesday that he would compete in the race. Cyclingnews.com quoted Team Sky as responding to Sunday’s report that they were "confident that Chris will be riding the Tour as we know he has done nothing wrong". A final decision on the organisers’ attempt to prevent the Kenyan-born Briton from taking part was expected to be made by the French National Olympic and Sports Committee, which would hav...
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