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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now in just a few hours’ time, Chris Froome is set to cycle into history as the winner of this year’s Tour de France. He’ll become Britain’s second successive winner after Sir Bradley Wiggins victory last year. Well I’m joined now from Paris by the President of British Cycling, Brian Cookson, we don’t want to tempt fate but awaiting the coronation there and if and when it does happen this will be a remarkable achievement by Chris Froome, second of course last year, and of course the team.

BRIAN COOKSON: Yes, absolutely Dermot. Chris is a very different rider, a very different person from Bradley but he is a wonderful athlete and the team have been absolutely first class, despite a couple of problems, accidents, crashes and so on, they’ve really all hung together and it’s a team victory with a brilliant individual at the head of the team.

DM: Yes and Chris Froome always pays tribute to the team. You mentioned that, they lost two riders so they were down to seven, one riding with a fractured pelvis, two of them a bit out of form last week, it hasn’t been a procession has it?

BRIAN COOKSON: No, it’s not been a procession at all and the Tour de France never is of course, anything can happen over the course of three weeks and they’ve had some misfortune and they’ve had one or two good bits of fortune as well but they pull together absolutely brilliantly as a team and that’s been fantastic to see.

DM: What does it do for British cycling? What state of health is it in? Well I know it is booming, I do a bit of cycling myself or I try to anyway but do you think it will give it another push?

BRIAN COOKSON: Well absolutely Dermot. Our membership at British Cycling has grown by 50% in the last 12 months, it has been an absolutely brilliant year for British cycling with the Olympics, with Bradley winning last year’s Tour and now this year’s Tour so we’ve had some fantastic performances and there has never been more people riding bikes in Great Britain and I’m sure the increase is set to continue.

DM: And of course, once this Tour’s over, the next time we see it, it’ll be in Yorkshire.

BRIAN COOKSON: Yes, we’re going to a reception shortly at the British Ambassador’s residence to launch the wonderful start in Leeds and Yorkshire next year, I think it’ll be a fantastic opportunity for lots of British people to see the Tour on home ground again. It’s going to be wonderful.

DM: And I mentioned Chris Froome’s effect on British cycling, of course he is British but we know he cut his teeth, he learned his skills in Kenya. It is a bit of a victory for global and in particular African cycling as well.

BRIAN COOKSON: Yes, I like to think that, Dermot. I think it’s a wonderful example of how people can come from all sorts of backgrounds and still be successful. Chris is from an expatriate family who lived in Kenya, he has always had a British passport and so on but he spent a lot of time in his formative years in South Africa as well so I think it is absolutely wonderful to consider him a kind of global figure with the links into Africa as well as into Great Britain and we’re very proud of the opportunities that we’ve been able to give him in British cycling as being part of that structure.

DM: And we have to talk, don’t we, about the questions that have dogged Chris Froome and the team throughout this Tour, ever since Chris Froome went into yellow ten days ago wasn’t it? This issue about how he’s done it, those asking him outright is he on drugs. What does he have to do, what does Chris Froome have to do to still those doubters, to show them that it is actually not happening any more, that cycling is now clean?

BRIAN COOKSON: Well I guess it’s inevitable to have these accusations after the revelations of the Lance Armstrong era, almost forever whoever is wearing the yellow jersey would be subject to questions and that’s right and proper but for me this is not a problem for Chris Froome and for Team Sky, this is a problem for the UCI, the International Cycling Union. We should be doing a lot more to restore credibility in the sport and as you probably know, without getting in terms of the elections, Dermot, I’m standing for the position of President of the UCI and I think one of the things that I really want to do is establish the credibility back in the sport by having an independent anti-doping agency running these things, so there are no questions of collusion and cover ups and all the other allegations that have been dogging our sport. We’ve got to restore credibility to the sport and I’m sure that we can do because it is a wonderful and beautiful sport that rewards hard work and brilliant team work like we’ve seen in the last three weeks.

DM: Well good luck with that and just lastly, Mr Cookson, just share with us, those of us who can’t be there, some of the atmosphere in Paris at the moment, that atmosphere of anticipation and how many Brits are there

BRIAN COOKSON: Oh most of the Champs Elysee is lined with British fans I think, they’re up and down around me now and the temperature is getting well in excess of the 30s at the moment so things are getting pretty hot, even almost ten hours before the event is due to finish. There’s a massive expectation and a really brilliant atmosphere, happy, friendly, lots of excited fans of all nationalities around here.

DM: What a great sport it is. Thank you very much indeed for the time, Brian, we’ll let you get back and soak up that atmosphere and hopefully soak up the celebrations this evening. Brian Cookson there, the President of British Cycling.