Cloud hangs over history-seeking Froome at Giro

Tour de France cycling race - The 197 km (122.4 miles) Stage 10 from Escaldes-Engordany, Andorra to Revel, France - 12/07/2016 - Yellow jersey leader Team Sky rider Chris Froome of Britain rides during the race. [Photo: Courtesy]

Chris Froome heads into the Giro d’Italia insisting he is focusing on his attempt to make history by holding all three titles from cycling’s Grand Tours at the same time.

But the 32-year-old Briton is being weighed down by a cloud looming over his continued participation in professional cycling races while waiting for a doping storm to be resolved.

Froome tested positive in September last year for elevated levels of the asthma medication salbutamol, resulting in an adverse analytical finding.

But rather than face a doping suspension, he has been given the opportunity to explain his test result during the Tour of Spain race he won.

The issue has dragged on, with some prominent voices in cycling — such as world governing body chief David Lappartient — expressing his belief that Froome should have been suspended by his British team Sky pending the outcome to his case. Froome and Sky insist the Kenyan-born athlete has done nothing wrong and simply took more puffs on his asthma inhaler than normal on the day he gave the adverse reading.