TOMORROW, Chris Froome will begin his campaign to become only the third man ever to win the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana in one season. His second Tour victory last month cemented the 30 year-old’s place in British sporting history and a victory in Spain in just over three weeks would elevate him further still. Yet the Kenyan-born Brit is overwhelmingly unpopular and has experienced a level of vitriol over the last month in particular that few other riders have ever had to contend with.

During last month’s Tour, Froome had every swear word imaginable shouted at him, was spat at and even had urine thrown over him. This hatred is as a result of some observers believing that Froome is doping. These allegations are wholly unfounded; there is no evidence whatsoever that the Brit is taking performance-enhancing drugs other than the fact that he is winning. Froome has been judged ‘guilty by performance’– in other words, he’s really good, so cannot possibly be at this level without chemical help.

On the one hand, this cynicism is understandable – the sport has been so badly damaged by drugs cheats in the past that almost all trust has been eroded. But on the other hand, this level of distrust does not help the sport or the riders. It seems, in some cases at least, those who were so completely taken in by Lance Armstrong for so many years have vowed never to be duped like that again and so blindly accuse any rider who excels of doping.

Yet the animosity towards the Brit goes further than that. Vincenzo Nibali, who has won all three Grand Tours in the past five years, has experienced only a fraction of the scrutiny and dissent that Froome has, so why is he so disliked? There are a few reasons. Firstly, the Brit is not an engaging character and has shown himself to be distinctly uncharismatic in post-race interviews. He is also part of Team Sky, a team which is disliked by many fans for what seem to be unspecified reasons. Many do not like that Sky are newcomers to the sport and have waltzed in only to dominate the Tour. Team Sky are also ultra-professional and while that should not necessarily be a bad thing, many cycling fans who like their riders to race with panache have been turned off by the regimented way Team Sky operate.

The British team is fighting back though. Just this week, Froome declared that he would be releasing performance data in an attempt to prove he is clean. It is an interesting step and one which has similarities to the British track athletes who released their blood values just a few weeks ago on the back of the doping scandal in which athletics is currently engulfed.

For Team Sky to be so open is rare in the world of elite sport and it demonstrates just how desperate the British team is to prove Froome’s innocence. Their problem is that you cannot prove a negative and no athlete can definitively prove that they are clean. There was a stage when Sky seemed to believe that ignoring the haters was the best way forward but it has gone too far for that now. The abuse directed at Team Sky’s riders and team personnel has now become the story and that is not sustainable for a team who rely on Sky’s sponsorship money to fund their operation. Sky is not paying millions of pounds a year for their name to be in the paper because one of their riders was being abused.

Froome is just three weeks away from becoming a cycling legend but will a victory alter the mood towards him? Probably not. And the sad thing is, neither will the release of performance data change the opinion of those who only see what they want to see.

AND ANOTHER THING

There has been much talk in the aftermath of both London 2012 and Glasgow 2014 that the legacy that was promised has failed to materialise. There have been numerous reports informing us that sports participation levels are down and that the money invested in the Games’ has been wasted. While in some cases the legacy may not be as greatly felt as one would have hoped, it is not all doom and gloom.

This weekend’s Scottish Athletics Age Group Championships at Grangemouth Stadium will see 1289 children compete, more than double the number who took part in 2011. While it would be erroneous to attribute this rise wholly to the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, it would equally be folly to suggest these events had no impact whatsoever. Children all across Scotland will have watched the Olympics and Commonwealth Games and decided that they wanted to do that too. Had these events not been on home soil, it is unlikely that the increase would have been quite so marked and while there is no automatic guarantee of producing another Eilidh Child or Lynsey Sharp just because more children are competing, it makes it a lot more probable.