MENDE, France -- French police have increased security around Britain's Team Sky after its riders, including Tour de France leader Chris Froome, complained about aggressive spectators.
A half dozen police officers kept watch outside the team bus at the Stage 15 start in Mende on Sunday.
Froome said a roadside spectator shouting "doper" in French splashed him with urine in Stage 14. His teammate Richie Porte said someone punched him on a climb in the Pyrenees last week.
Disappointing that a French “fan” ruined a great day for me today. Congrats @StevoCummings @TeamMTNQhubeka #MandelaDay @letour— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) July 18, 2015
Being doused in liquids by roadside fans goes with the terrain of being a Tour de France rider. But this was different.
"No mistake, it was urine," the race leader said.
Froome blamed "very irresponsible" reporters for turning public opinion against him and his Sky team. Just as he did in winning the Tour for the first time in 2013, the Kenya-born Briton has faced pointed questions about his dominant performances — and those of his teammates — along with insinuations of doping.
Froome said he spotted the spectator acting bizarrely about a third of the way into Saturday's 178-kilometer (111-mile) west-to-east ride from Rodez to Mende.
Thank you to the real fans who come out to support all the riders every day. Pity such a small minority can have such a negative impact #TDF— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) July 18, 2015
"I saw this guy just peering around and I thought, 'That looks a bit strange,'" he said. "As I got there he just sort of launched this cup toward me and said (in French) 'Doper!'
"That's unacceptable on so many levels."
His Sky teammate Richie Porte said another person, also apparently a spectator, thumped him with a "full-on punch" a few days earlier on a climb in the Pyrenees. Porte suggested journalists may be putting riders in danger by "whipping up all the rubbish that they are."
Froome echoed that thinking.
"I certainly wouldn't blame the public for this," he said. "I would blame some of the reporting on the race that has been very irresponsible.
"It is no longer the riders who are bringing the sport into disrepute now, it's those individuals, and they know who they are."
He refused to identify specific journalists or reports, but said: "They set that tone to people and obviously people believe what they see in the media."
Although such assaults remain rare, Froome is not the first rider in Tour history to have been doused by urine, nor is Porte the first to be punched.
Still, the aggression shows how their generation is paying the price for decades of damage done by dopers, none more infamous than Lance Armstrong, who was stripped of seven Tour victories and confessed to systematic cheating after years of lying.
In the lingering atmosphere of distrust, Froome's repeated assurances that he is clean have fallen on deaf ears.
"Unfortunately this is the legacy that has been handed to us by the people before us, people who have won the Tour only to disappoint fans a few years later," Froome said.
"If this is part of the process we have to go through to get the sport to the better place, obviously I'm here, I'm doing it," he added. "I'm not going to give up the race because a few guys are shouting insults."