Tour de France 2013: the incredible rise of Chris Froome - and how he was almost killed by a hippo
Outside his tin shack home in the Kenyan village of Mai-ai-hii, where the local boys flock to learn all about bicycles, David Kinjah is outlining his plan to let these lads watch this year’s Tour de France.
Image 1 of 5
Shining light: Chris Froome has risen from humble roots to become Team Sky's lead rider for the Tour de France Photo: GETTY IMAGES
6:35AM BST 27 Jun 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/tour-de-france/10144509/Tour-de-France-2013-the-incredible-rise-of-Chris-Froome-and-how-he-was-almost-killed-by-a-hippo.html
“I’m trying to get money together to buy a decoder for a cable channel, not so
cheap, and I need a projector to show the boys the highlights every
evening,” he sighs.
Kinjah wants these kids, many of them poor and orphaned but now resplendent in
Team Sky kit donated by Chris Froome, to see their invisible hero come to
life. Because Froome was once one of them, sleeping five to a room on the
floor of Kinjah’s hut, pounding furiously over the Ngong hills on a battered
mountain bike and camping out in the bush on maize, mangos and big dreams.
Last week, in Nice, Froome reflected how Kinjah was “the man who brought cycling
alive” for him, the one who set him on a journey that began in a peloton of
kids barely able to afford shoes and which took in debilitating illness,
escapes from charging hippos and forging documents just to earn the chance
of competing internationally.
“I’d like to think what I’ve done can give people motivation from non-cycling
nations,” Froome reflected. “That’s the message I’d like to give to
youngsters; basically, you make your own luck and opportunities. It’s not
easy but if you really want something badly enough, you’re going to find a
way to make it happen.”
It helps if you have your own Kinjah. At 41, this amazing man laughs that he
is still Kenya’s No 1 even though his famed dreadlocks now fail to mask a
bald patch. He was the first black African rider to sign for a European team
and is now back multitasking as tour guide, race organiser, champion rider
and fundraising guru for his ‘Safari Simbaz’ boys.
“He still talks of me? That makes me proud,” he says of Froome. Kinjah still
remembers a “humble, gentle lady”, with a little boy in tow, approaching him
at a cycle meet he organised. “She said: ‘I’m Jane Froome. This is my little
boy Chris. He likes bicycles but I don’t know anything about them and feel
I’m stopping him enjoying life to the full. He needs an outlet for his
energy and thinks you’re phenomenal. Can you help him?’”
These were hard times. Froome’s parents had separated, his English dad Clive, a former England Under-19 hockey player, having moved to South Africa to set up a new business while mum Jane was struggling to make physiotherapy work pay in Kenya. Most of the family’s money was being spent on educating Chris’s two older brothers, Jonathan and Jeremy, at Rugby School.
When the brothers came home for the holidays, it was outdoor adventure time. The boys collected snakes. “Mum wasn’t a fan but wanted to encourage us learning, so she let us keep them in the house,” recalled Jeremy, who, along with his mother, came up with the money to pay for Chris’s first BMX. “We had about 50 in the house. Chris had two pythons, Rocky and Shandy, he absolutely loved. And we did a lot of fishing in dams and duck shooting in rice paddies.”
Those fields were riddled with bilharzia, the debilitating parasitic infection which affected all three brothers for years and which seriously stunted Chris’s first years as a professional.
“He was unusual but wasn’t a boy you’d think of as a future champion,” Kinjah said. “Nothing special – except in his head. I thought he’d be a loner because even now in the village you don’t see many white people. It was a bit odd for us spending days with a young white boy who was a bit shy and quiet. Soon, though, it was like we had known each other for ever.
“We’d laugh and make fun if he used the wrong gears or didn’t have enough muscle. We gave him Kikuyu nicknames; we’d even call him Masai because, here in Kikuyu, if someone calls you that, it means you’re not so clever!
“We tried not to be soft on him or have sympathy for him. We always counted ourselves as hardcore. We have drudge, we have hard life here. So we’d say: ‘Chris, this is African life, my friend! Too hard for you!’ But he wouldn’t take that. He’d stand up and growl: ‘I’m one of you guys and whatever you do, I do it too!’ And he did. In a way, we can say he became an honorary Kikuyu.
“We would do rides of 200km. Too difficult for this boy, really. Still, he never gave up. If we tried to stop him, he protested, thought we were being unfair and said: ‘I’m going to finish!’ He always had courage.”
Once, Jeremy remembers Chris treading on a metal spike on a beach during a family holiday which went straight through his foot. “It needed a hacksaw to cut it off and though it must have been excruciatingly painful, he never complained, just stayed quiet. That’s Chris. People see a quiet, polite soul but inside he’s fiery and strong.”
There was a barmy streak, too. “He’d hang behind on fast moving trucks at 70, 80km an hour without fearing things like potholes or dead dogs in the road which could pull you over,” Kinjah recalls. “He once got chased up a bank by a hippo. ‘Hey Kinjah, that thing could have killed me!’ ”
At 12, Froome went to South Africa where, now supported by his dad, his cycling blossomed at schools, first in Bloemfontein, then Johannesburg. In 2006, he beat Kinjah for the first time, but Kenya’s cycling authorities did not want this South African-based kid in their team. “They weren’t going to select Chris for the Commonwealth Games so we said to the federation: ‘If he’s not in the team, we’ll go on strike!’ So they had to include him,” said Kinjah.
Kinjah and Froome had countless frustrations. “He wanted to compete in the [under-23) world championships but the federation wouldn’t sanction it. But he was smart. We would read all their emails and we basically forged the entry forms to allow him to compete and kept it a big secret.”
Froome went to Salzburg for his first European race, and became disoriented, speeding down the time trial ramp and knocking a race commissaire flying. Still, the adventure took courage and Kinjah still has that red bike as a souvenir in his workshop.
He applauds Froome for using his English roots and UK passport to seek a career with British cycling. “He had to. If he’d stayed as a Kenyan rider, then he wouldn’t be what he is now.”
Jonathan Froome works for the Financial Services Authority in London while Jeremy is the finance chief for a gold mine in Kenya. The brothers say the family’s great sadness is that their mother never lived to see this moment. She died just before Chris made his Tour debut in 2008.
“She’s always in my thoughts,” Froome told The Daily Telegraph last week. “Mum was an inspiration, a huge reason why I got into the sport and always there driving the car alongside, helping me, Kinjah and the boys carry bottles on these long rides and standing up for us in all the political battles.”
Back in the village, Kinjah thinks of his old friend and hopes he will be able to provide a yellow jersey, so he can auction it to raise funds for the Simbaz. “And maybe one for me to put in my living room! It would be a big pride.
“My dad is old now and listens to BBC World Service a lot. Last month, he heard this story about Chris Froome and said: ‘Is that the young white boy you would bring here, he’s become a very big cyclist now?’
“It made me smile. Because my dad is my number one fan and still thinks I am the greatest cyclist ever but I am going to buy a DVD and a nice TV. And then I’ll show him videos of Chris Froome.”
These were hard times. Froome’s parents had separated, his English dad Clive, a former England Under-19 hockey player, having moved to South Africa to set up a new business while mum Jane was struggling to make physiotherapy work pay in Kenya. Most of the family’s money was being spent on educating Chris’s two older brothers, Jonathan and Jeremy, at Rugby School.
When the brothers came home for the holidays, it was outdoor adventure time. The boys collected snakes. “Mum wasn’t a fan but wanted to encourage us learning, so she let us keep them in the house,” recalled Jeremy, who, along with his mother, came up with the money to pay for Chris’s first BMX. “We had about 50 in the house. Chris had two pythons, Rocky and Shandy, he absolutely loved. And we did a lot of fishing in dams and duck shooting in rice paddies.”
Those fields were riddled with bilharzia, the debilitating parasitic infection which affected all three brothers for years and which seriously stunted Chris’s first years as a professional.
“He was unusual but wasn’t a boy you’d think of as a future champion,” Kinjah said. “Nothing special – except in his head. I thought he’d be a loner because even now in the village you don’t see many white people. It was a bit odd for us spending days with a young white boy who was a bit shy and quiet. Soon, though, it was like we had known each other for ever.
“We’d laugh and make fun if he used the wrong gears or didn’t have enough muscle. We gave him Kikuyu nicknames; we’d even call him Masai because, here in Kikuyu, if someone calls you that, it means you’re not so clever!
“We tried not to be soft on him or have sympathy for him. We always counted ourselves as hardcore. We have drudge, we have hard life here. So we’d say: ‘Chris, this is African life, my friend! Too hard for you!’ But he wouldn’t take that. He’d stand up and growl: ‘I’m one of you guys and whatever you do, I do it too!’ And he did. In a way, we can say he became an honorary Kikuyu.
“We would do rides of 200km. Too difficult for this boy, really. Still, he never gave up. If we tried to stop him, he protested, thought we were being unfair and said: ‘I’m going to finish!’ He always had courage.”
Once, Jeremy remembers Chris treading on a metal spike on a beach during a family holiday which went straight through his foot. “It needed a hacksaw to cut it off and though it must have been excruciatingly painful, he never complained, just stayed quiet. That’s Chris. People see a quiet, polite soul but inside he’s fiery and strong.”
There was a barmy streak, too. “He’d hang behind on fast moving trucks at 70, 80km an hour without fearing things like potholes or dead dogs in the road which could pull you over,” Kinjah recalls. “He once got chased up a bank by a hippo. ‘Hey Kinjah, that thing could have killed me!’ ”
At 12, Froome went to South Africa where, now supported by his dad, his cycling blossomed at schools, first in Bloemfontein, then Johannesburg. In 2006, he beat Kinjah for the first time, but Kenya’s cycling authorities did not want this South African-based kid in their team. “They weren’t going to select Chris for the Commonwealth Games so we said to the federation: ‘If he’s not in the team, we’ll go on strike!’ So they had to include him,” said Kinjah.
Kinjah and Froome had countless frustrations. “He wanted to compete in the [under-23) world championships but the federation wouldn’t sanction it. But he was smart. We would read all their emails and we basically forged the entry forms to allow him to compete and kept it a big secret.”
Froome went to Salzburg for his first European race, and became disoriented, speeding down the time trial ramp and knocking a race commissaire flying. Still, the adventure took courage and Kinjah still has that red bike as a souvenir in his workshop.
He applauds Froome for using his English roots and UK passport to seek a career with British cycling. “He had to. If he’d stayed as a Kenyan rider, then he wouldn’t be what he is now.”
Jonathan Froome works for the Financial Services Authority in London while Jeremy is the finance chief for a gold mine in Kenya. The brothers say the family’s great sadness is that their mother never lived to see this moment. She died just before Chris made his Tour debut in 2008.
“She’s always in my thoughts,” Froome told The Daily Telegraph last week. “Mum was an inspiration, a huge reason why I got into the sport and always there driving the car alongside, helping me, Kinjah and the boys carry bottles on these long rides and standing up for us in all the political battles.”
Back in the village, Kinjah thinks of his old friend and hopes he will be able to provide a yellow jersey, so he can auction it to raise funds for the Simbaz. “And maybe one for me to put in my living room! It would be a big pride.
“My dad is old now and listens to BBC World Service a lot. Last month, he heard this story about Chris Froome and said: ‘Is that the young white boy you would bring here, he’s become a very big cyclist now?’
“It made me smile. Because my dad is my number one fan and still thinks I am the greatest cyclist ever but I am going to buy a DVD and a nice TV. And then I’ll show him videos of Chris Froome.”
