Saturday 23 July 2016 20:27, UK
Sir Dave Brailsford has described Chris Froome’s impending victory at the Tour de France as Team Sky’s best ever performance at the race.
Froome only has to avoid crashing on Sunday's processional final stage into Paris to seal his third Tour triumph in four years and Team Sky's fourth in five years.
Froome will beat Romain Bardet into second place by 4min 5sec and although he won by a bigger margin in 2013, Brailsford thinks his latest victory has been more complete.
He told ITV Sport: "That was very satisfying, I must say. I think it's probably our best performance in the Tour de France.
"As a team, it was a complete performance. Collectively, we have never finished with nine riders before.
"We have got tomorrow to go, but Chris was brilliant. He raced differently, more aggressively, and the team were brave enough to take it on in that first week, when no one else wanted to.
"We set our stall out. We thought, 'Right, we are going to try to win this race, we are going to be way more aggressive', and as a collective, we were way stronger than everybody else."
Froome first seized the yellow jersey by winning stage eight with a downhill attack and stretched his lead further with another surprise attack in crosswinds on stage 11.
He then took complete control of the race by routing his rivals in time trials on stages 13 and 18.
Brailsford added: "In the first week and then into the Pyrenees, when the time gaps were very small, Chris gained his time by attacking on the downhill, in the crosswinds, and that was exciting.
"Nobody really knew what was going to happen when we hit the mountains, so we decided, before we knew where the climbers were going to be, we were going to take the race on and I think that was pretty exciting and everybody saw a different side to the racing style, and the way that Chris took the race on."
The Tour concludes on Sunday with a 113km 21st stage from Chantilly to Paris. Find out more about the route in our race guide and follow the action with our live blog from 3pm BST.
