Unless Disney are planning yet another remake of The Jungle Book, with Chris Froome cast as the villainous Kaa, the prospective new owners of Team Sky are unlikely to welcome the latest spat between their two most successful riders.
Froome and Sir Bradley Wiggins have long been the best of enemies, with their often public disputes normally involving their wives and a trading of blows on social media.
But nothing has come close to the vitriol expressed in one particular Facebook post this week, when Mrs Wiggins referred to Froome as a ‘slithering reptile’.
Sir Bradley Wiggins and his wife Catherine at the GQ Awards at the Royal Opera House
Chris Froome and his wife Michelle Cound at the 69th Monaco Red Cross Ball Gala in July
It represented a significantly more toxic grade of venom, with Cath Wiggins clearly simmering over Froome’s less than sympathetic response to the revelations concerning her husband last year.
Froome took a dim view of the medical exemption that enabled Wiggins to use a controversial drug prior to winning the 2012 Tour de France, and publicly welcomed questions about the as-yet-unexplained jiffy bag in 2011.
At the Wiggins home in Chorley, Lancashire, one can only imagine the response to the news this week that Froome suddenly had answers of his own to provide.
On Wednesday, Wiggins’ wife blasted Froome (left) as a ‘reptile’ in light of his recent drugs test
However, on Thursday she apologised citing it as a ‘heat of the moment thing’
Indeed, Wiggins would no doubt argue that a failed test, due to an adverse analytical finding of excessive levels of an asthma drug in a sample given in September’s Vuelta a Espana, is far more serious than any issues he has faced these past 15 months.
But Cath Wiggins was clearly disappointed with what she perceived to be a lack of news coverage and took to social media to express her anger and frustration alongside a photo of Froome.
‘I am going to be sick,’ she said. ‘Nothing in the news. If I was given to conspiracy theory I’d allege they’d thrown my boy under the bus on purpose to cover for this slithering reptile.’
At a time when Team Sky are under yet more scrutiny and their owners have agreed to sell to a company that would probably rank Dopey the dwarf as the closest they’ve ever come to being associated with drugs, such an outburst from the wife of a now former rider will be most unwelcome.
And all the more uncomfortable when Cath Wiggins also seems to imply that Sir Dave Brailsford and Co have somehow sacrificed her ‘boy’ to protect their now four-time Tour de France champion.
Wiggins and Froome fell out when they were Sky team-mates at the 2012 Tour de France
The feud dates back, of course, to that 2012 Tour and one of the most memorable moments of the race on the ascent towards La Toussuire — by coincidence the same French ski town where the Wiggins medical package was delivered a year earlier.
To the surprise of everyone, Froome suddenly attacked and dropped Wiggins when his employers expected him to simply perform the role of minder and domestique to his team-mate and race leader.
Froome was ordered to slow down and wait for Wiggins. But, according to members of the then team management, Wiggins was so mentally shattered by his colleague’s show of strength that he had to be persuaded to climb back on his bike for the next stage of the race.
And while Wiggins went on to win the Tour, with Froome second, it has since emerged that the tradition of sharing the winner’s prize money — reportedly in the region of £1million in 2012 — with eight hard-working team-mates did not extend to Froome.
Wiggins embraces his wife after winning gold in the men’s Team Pursuit at the Rio Olympics
The couple then shared a kiss after Wiggins’ triumph at last year’s Olympics
It apparently took 14 months and the intervention of Brailsford before Froome received his cash. As Michelle Froome would later tell The Times: ‘I don’t believe Brad ever intended to pay Chris the bonus. I think the reason he did is because he knew it was coming out in the book. Brad paying Chris really doesn’t mean that much. It’s about a lot more than the sum of money.’
At the end of the 2012 Tour, Michelle Cound, as she was then, was keen to defend her future husband against accusations of mutiny. ‘Teamwork is also about giving the people around you, that support you, a chance to shine in their own right,’ she said on Twitter.
To which Cath Wiggins then responded by thanking two other team-mates, Michael Rogers and Richie Porte, for their ‘genuine, selfless effort and true professionalism’. Irked by the obvious omission of Froome, Michelle then posted: ‘If you want loyalty, get a Froome dog — a quality I value, although being taken advantage of by others!’
Froome took part in a training session at Mallorca on Thursday despite questions being asked
Froome pictured on September 7 – the day he provided the sample containing salbutamol
A year later, after Froome won the Tour, Michelle condemned the Wiggins couple for their silence in response to his victory. She said they should have ‘been a bit more classy and sent a message of congratulations’. At that stage they were still Sky team-mates.
This week Cath Wiggins not only took down her original post but then wrote an apology. ‘Sorry everyone for my emotional comments and insults,’ she said. ‘Too much stress has got the better of me. Heat-of-the-moment things and certainly not my intent to fan any flames.’
But fan the flames she most certainly did. The Froomes might have maintained a dignified silence on Friday but, for Team Sky, it amounted to yet more damage to an already battered reputation.