IT WOULD be “humanly impossible” for Chris Froome to add the Giro to his Tour-La Vuelta double in a single year, former double winner Stephen Roche said yesterday.

Froome completed the Tour and Vuelta double by winning the latter in Madrid on Sunday but Roche, who won both the Tour and Giro in 1987, does not think any rider could win all three in the same 12 months because of the importance placed on the Tour.

Six men have claimed all three grand tour crowns during their careers — Jacques Anquetil, Alberto Contador, Felice Gimondi, Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx and Vincenzo Nibali — but nobody has managed to win them all in the same year.