As curiosity builds around his racing future, Chris Froome has taken on the role of chief innovation officer at Vekta, an AI training platform.
The 40-year-old, who has not raced since last August and appears to be without a team, will be involved in the French company’s product and brand development, and will also chair a newly created athlete advisory board.
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Cycling Weekly was granted exclusive access to a press release on the announcement. In it, Froome is quoted as saying: “I’ve spent my career inside some of the most advanced performance environments in sport, and I’ve seen both the strengths and limitations of existing tools.
“What drew me to Vekta is the team’s ambition to build something that genuinely reflects how athletes train, race and adapt over time. For me, this is about rolling up my sleeves and helping build what comes next in performance, and I’m very excited to get stuck in.”
So what does this mean for the four-time Tour de France champion’s career as a professional cyclist? Has he retired from the peloton? That much is still unconfirmed.
Froome is yet to officially announce news of his racing future. “People will know soon enough,” he told Cyclingnews in December, but has remained silent, save for social media posts about a rally event in Monaco and a skiing holiday, in the three months since.
Froome’s last victory came at the 2018 Giro d’Italia, then riding for Team Sky.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“I haven’t 100% decided that I’ll be retiring at the end of this year,” Froome told the Never Strays Far podcast in February 2025. “Chances are, yes, I’ll be calling it a day, but I’m just keeping the door open. [I’ll] see how this year goes, see how I’m feeling towards the end of it.”
Froome’s season ended abruptly after the Tour de Pologne in August, when he was airlifted to hospital following a training crash near his home in the south of France. He suffered five broken ribs, a collapsed lung and a lumbar vertebrae fracture. His wife, Michelle Froome, told The Times he also had a pericardial rupture, a tear in the sac around the heart, that doctors were able to repair in surgery.
Although Froome’s new role at Vekta does not necessarily mark the end of his cycling career, it does appear to show him planning for life beyond it.
During his career, which began more than two decades ago and counts four Tour de France titles, two Vueltas a España and a Giro d’Italia, he has made a number of investments in cycling-adjacent brands, including Factor Bikes, GPS computer company Hammerhead, and glucose-monitoring platform Supersapiens.
Vekta CEO Paul-Antoine Girard described Froome’s appointment as a “defining moment” for the company, which launched last spring.
“Chris has spent his entire career at the very sharp end of elite performance,” Girard said. “His leadership will help shape the next generation of performance tools across endurance sport.”
Vekta is an AI platform that analyses training data and provides insights such as power zone calculation and stress monitoring. The company has partnerships with WorldTour teams including Lidl-Trek, Jayco AlUla, FDJ United-SUEZ and Decathlon CMA CGM.
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