Cycling: Tour of Andalusia: Froome in time trial only eleventh – Wave’s overall winner

Four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome (Great Britain) did not win the Andalusia Tour in his controversial season debut.

The Sky rider, who was in the spotlight due to the Salbutamol affair, also had to admit defeat in the final individual time trial over 14.2 km in the coastal city of Barbate and, 27 seconds behind his victorious team-mate David de la Cruz (Spain), was only eleventh.

The Belgian Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal), who finished in eighth place, secured the overall victory ahead of Wout Poels (Sky) from the Netherlands and Marc Soler (Movistar) from Spain. Froome was in eighteenth place overall. The Olympic champion of 2016 in the individual time trial had already lost all chances of his second overall victory after 2015 due to a technical defect on Saturday.

Froome had taken two doping tests during the round trip to Spain last September, in which the permitted value of the asthma drug salbutamol was doubled. Since then, the 32-year-old has maintained his innocence and spoke of “widespread misinformation”. According to media reports, the Anti-Doping-Tribunal of the UCI wants to initiate proceedings against Froome.