Four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome has spoken in detail for the first time about the life-threatening injuries he suffered in a training crash in August 2025, describing how he came close to dying and how the rapid arrival of an ambulance saved his life.
In an interview with Cyclingnews, the 41-year-old Briton recounted the incident that effectively brought his professional career to an end. While training in the south of France, Froome clipped a curb and collided with a road sign at around 50 km/h.
“I nearly died,” Froome said. “My pericardium was open, my heart was exposed. I broke all my ribs, they collapsed into my chest cavity. I have metal plates on each of my ribs to keep the ribcage open, because the whole ribcage basically collapsed, and the ribs did a lot of damage to the right lung, and one of the ribs tore the pericardium.”
He described the immediate aftermath in stark terms: “I was literally bleeding out. The ambulance arrived seven or eight minutes after the accident, I think. If they hadn’t arrived so quickly, I don’t think I’d be here today. So I was extremely lucky.”
Froome spent months in hospital, remaining there into January 2026, and required further treatment including surgery related to infections around the metal plates. His focus during recovery was simply on returning to a normal life rather than competitive cycling.
He explained the prolonged silence around his retirement by saying he had already considered his final contract with Israel-Premier Tech to be his last, and assumed the severity of his situation made the end of his career obvious.
When later asked by a journalist whether he planned to race again, he replied that it was not a formal retirement announcement but that he had “no desire to get back on my bike” and was simply “grateful to be alive.”
Froome has since returned to casual riding on an occasional basis from around February 2026, describing it as a way to clear his mind and enjoy being outdoors, but he has not returned to competition.