But Froome's Big Four rivals at the tour -- Alberto Contador, Vincenzo Nibali and Nairo Quintana - weren't the only hurdles in his path. There were outside influences that threatened to derail his campaign.
Cheteshwar Pujara was the highest-ranked Indian batsman despite dropping a rung to eighth while R Ashwin held on to his eighth position in the bowlers' chart of the ICC Test rankings.
Manchester United's Zlatan Ibrahimovic proved his hunger for silverware has not diminished with age as the Swede's double earned a 3-2 win over Southampton in an absorbing League Cup final at Wembley.
India scored a 3-0 victory over Poland to notch their second consecutive victory in the Hockey World League semi-finals, in Antwerp, on Tuesday.
Check out India's report card on the third day of the 2016 Olympics.
Manchester City claimed the win required to finally end Liverpool's relentless attempt to dethrone them as Premier League champions as they hit back from a goal down to crush Brighton and Hove Albion on the south coast on Sunday.
A stable government at the Centre and its plans to set up smart cities has revived investors' interest in the country with Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore set to emerge as hot investment destinations in 2015.
A summary of Wednesday's matches in the UEFA Champions League.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
'It is vital that objects such as the Harihara -- and collections from South Asia generally -- remain here,' the British Museum tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
A look at the top tweets from your favourite Bollywood celebrities.
Serena Williams is third on the list of female Grand Slam title winners. She is one of only five women, after Maureen Connolly, Margaret Court, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf, to hold all four Grand Slam titles at same time.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field.
Indian American children maintained their complete dominance in the annual US Scripps National Spelling Bee contest by winning the prestigious competition for the eighth year in a row.
Photos from the La Liga matches played on Sunday
A summary of Sunday's matches at the French Open.
How the 4 ministries have performed
England and Tunisia players swatted away swarms of gnats that flew into their eyes and mouths during their opening World Cup game in Russia's riverside city of Volgograd on Monday.
Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton stormed to his third successive pole position of the season, and third in a row in China, after edging team-mate Nico Rosberg in a front-row lockout for Mercedes on Saturday.
Striker Robert Lewandowski scored a second-half hat-trick as Borussia Dortmund reclaimed top spot in the Bundesliga with an awe-inspiring 6-1 demolition of VfB Stuttgart on Friday.
Paulo Dybala came off the bench to give unbeaten Serie A leaders Juventus a 1-0 win away to a brave Bologna side who had the better of the match and hit the post in stoppage time on Sunday.
It's a truly bizarre world we live in... These images prove it.
Substitute Jesse Lingard struck twice in the second half as Manchester United fought back from 2-0 down to earn a 2-2 Premier League draw with Burnley at Old Trafford on Tuesday.
'Communalism and communal riots happened in India only during and due to colonialism. Pre-colonial India didn't have this problem of communal conflicts and religious strife.'
Lionel Messi dragged Barcelona back from two goals down by scoring twice to snatch a 2-2 draw at home to Valencia in a thrilling encounter.
The Indian Institute of Science topped the HRD ministry's 2017 national rankings. In 2016, the IISc was ranked among the world's top 15 universities in the Times Higher Education University Rankings. In his book The Creation of Wealth: The Tatas from the 19th to the 21st Century, R M Lala recounted how Jamsetji Tata's grand vision and immense personal contribution laid the edifice of arguably India's finest educational institution.
Kurt Zouma and Eden Hazard scored the goals the goals in a match that saw Diego Costa play central character.
Hegerberg hat-trick fires Lyon to fourth straight Champions League
Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema took Real Betis apart to give Real Madrid a resounding 5-0 win on Saturday that put them level on 50 points with Barcelona and Atletico Madrid at the top of La Liga.
India came up with a spirited performance to draw with Olympic champions Germany 3-3 and register their first win at the Hero Hockey World League Finals in New Delhi.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Tuesday
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Tuesday.
France substitute Kylian Mbappe engineered two late goals to rescue a 2-2 draw against Iceland and spare the blushes of the world champions in their friendly.
Serena Williams battered Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 6-4 in the quarter-finals at Wimbledon on Tuesday, seizing on moments of weakness from the Russian to ram home her advantage.
A long measure of Grand Slam patience paid off for Peng Shuai of China, who reached the semi-finals of the US Open on Tuesday by routing Swiss teenager Belinda Bencic 6-2, 6-1 in the Flushing Meadows heat.
Shardul Thakur made his first appearance in the series count with a four-wicket haul as India yet again choked the South African batsmen, dismissing them for a below-par 204, in the sixth and final One-Day International, in Centurion, on Friday.
Manchester United won 2-1 at Crystal Palace to consolidate fourth spot.
For several years the Chinese authorities have been taking steps to internationalise the use of the yuan.
Leicester City continued to do their best Houdini impression on Saturday as they escaped the Premier League drop zone for the first time since November while Manchester City went up to second spot with a thrilling win.
'Disgruntled, disillusioned, Muslim youth -- of whom there is no dearth, given the Muslim world's sorry state -- are ready to take on the might of the West and attack it in any way they can.' 'For them, it is their faith, and not the reasoning of Newton or Descartes that has stayed with them, sustained them through the misery their world had sunk into,' says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
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