Tour de France 2018: Dave Brailsford launches scathing attack on French cycling culture amid Team Sky abuse

Sir Dave Brailsford has issued a scathing critique of French cycling culture, saying the annual abuse aimed at Team Sky has gone too far and has left some of his younger staff members feeling intimidated, as he called for spectators to show his team "a little more respect".

Team Sky have become accustomed to a hostile reception in France as their domination of the race has grown since Bradley Wiggins’ victory in 2012, as a combination of weariness with their success and suspicion over their practices have whipped up animosity among spectators.

Already this year their riders have faced booing, verbal abuse, spitting, liquid launched in their direction and even a punch, aimed at enemy No 1 Chris Froome, who is second in the overall standings behind team-mate Geraint Thomas and who are on the verge of clinching Team Sky’s sixth Tour de France success in seven years.

Speaking to the media in Carcassonne on the race’s final rest day before a decisive week in the Pyrenees, Brailsford launched into a stinging attack on what he called “a French cultural thing”.

“I don’t think it’s going to stop, I’m not too optimistic on that front,” he said of their hostile reception around France. “It’s challenging, we accept it, we just have to make a decision as to how to behave. We’re trying not to react. We have a mindset where we don’t get distracted by it.

“I don’t think spitting has a place in professional sport personally, or in everyday life, but it seems to be the thing that’s done here [in France]. But we’re not going to let it distract us. It’s interesting, we just raced in Italy and if this is all about Chris and his case, well his case was open during the Tour of Italy and they were fantastic, the Italians. The Spanish, fantastic. It just seems to be a French thing. A French cultural thing really, that’s it.

“I’m not sure they would have liked their football players to be spat at in Russia, but it’s OK to spit on us and our staff. I’ve got young staff, our mechanic is 21, she’s a young girl trying to drive round France and it’s intimidating for her, very very intimidating, and to be spat it – personally I’d have a bit of an issue if it was going on in my country but there we go. We just carry on.”

Brailsford said the reaction could eventually drive foreign teams away from the Tour in a warning to race organisers ASO and the UCI president David Lappartient, with whom Brailsford had a public spat during the opening week of the race.

“The Tour is promoted as the world’s greatest annual international sporting event and if that’s what you want to host and if you want the best riders in the world to come to your country to take part, then maybe treat them with a little more respect,” he said. “If you don’t want them to come then maybe race only with French teams, that might work, but if you want them to come then treat them with the same respect that you’d want your national team to be treated with when they go to Russia or wherever else. That’s the way I see it.

“We’ve had it for years. This isn’t something new. Part of winning the Tour de France for us is to come and try and win it again having won it for a long time. We know we’re going to get stick, we’ve been here before, we’re experienced at it, we carry on with a smile and just try to win the race.”

Brailsford also dismissed any concerns over the potential impact of Gianni Moscon’s disqualification from the race for punching a fellow rider on Sunday, and reiterated that his management team would decide on Moscon’s future once the Tour was over.

“Thankfully it wasn’t earlier in the race. It means some riders will have to do a bit more work, but I’m not so sure it will have an impact on the race. The last couple of stages would have hurt us more [to be without Moscon].”