Froome's legend grows with 3rd Tour de France win

Sunday's ceremonial climax from Chantilly to the Champs-Elysees provided an opportunity to honour a record 175 finishers, and among them, the seventh rider to win a trio of Tour de France victories.

Chris Froome completed his treble, this one in a dominant manner, besting second-place Frenchman Romain Bardet and primary general classification foe Nairo Quintana. Hulking sprinter Andre Greipel narrowly beat Peter Sagan to the line in the finale, but all eyes were on Froome.

The result was hardly in doubt over the last week, though the race was no less exciting.

Froome broke a mould, fellow Brit and white jersey-winner Adam Yates was a brilliant surprise and Bardet was composed baring the host's pressure. Points leader Sagan was characteristically rousing and Mark Cavendish rocketed to four stage wins while the race boasted three photo finishes and a standard for days without an abandonment.

Among the dissapointments, GC hopes Bauke Mollema and Alberto Contador will rue erratic efforts. Simon Gerrans and two-stage winner Thomas Dumoulin will lament untimely injuries and Quintana can reflect on finishing runner-up twice and now third in years that Froome has gone on to win cycling's biggest spectacle.

An imaginary effort

Froome entered the 2016 Tour de France the bookmaker's favourite.

With two prior wins in 2013 and 2015, the Team Sky all-rounder was expected to win a third with general classification competition coming from the likes of two-time champ Contador, 2014 winner Vincenzo Nibali and diminutive Colombian sparkplug Quintana.

When the Kenyan-born Brit took the title in 2013 and 2015, he treated the eight-stage Criterium du Dauphine as a tune-up. In both those years, Froome won the annual south-eastern France showcase, and again this year, he captured a Dauphine that favours the climbers. That was a bad omen for his GC challengers.

While one race won't necessarily define the career of a cyclist of Froome's renown, the 31-year-old has vaulted his status among the pantheon of his generation's greatest riders courtesy of a dominant display over 21 stages.

Characterised as a boring rider who relies heavily on the sport's most stacked team, Froome was anything but stodgy this time around.

Here's a look at three moments that defined Froome's 2016 Tour de France:

Stage 8: An audacious descent

Froome won his sixth-career Tour stage in an unconventional fashion to snatch yellow from countryman Steve Cummings. He wouldn't surrender it following an audacious attack where Froome crested the final peak and raced to the finish alone while a decorated group that included his main GC rivals finished 13 seconds adrift.

Stones on the top tube and recklessly draped across the handle bars, Froome defied perceptions to place his imprint on the race's second week. Unnecessarily dangerous and unexpectedly astonishing.

Stage 11: Stars Sagan & Froome steal the show

If Froome is cycling's best, Tinkoff classics specialist Sagan is its rock star. Equal parts panache and pace, the pony-tailed green jersey-winner opted for a break with 12 kilometres to go. Sagan's teammate Maciej Bodnar followed suit, and so to did Froome and his Team Sky workhorse Geraint Thomas.

The Montpellier finish was tailor made for sprinters, though Sagan and Froome were having none of it, finishing six seconds up on the pack. The margin of victory may have been nominal, but it sent a clear message to Froome's critics: boring no more.

Stage 18: Time trial ascension

Froome didn't have to win Thursday's mountainous individual time trial. Dutchman Dumoulin set an early standard, and as each rider crossed the staggered finish, that time appeared an unattainable standard.

Among all his virtues, it's easy to forget how good of a climber Froome is. He reminded the cycling world of just that, finishing 21 seconds ahead of Dumoulin's stellar time and 42 seconds in front of GC foe Bardet.

From trite and uninteresting to daring and even bordering on the dangerous, Chris Froome has cemented his place as one of the era's greats by winning a third Tour de France in dominant fashion.