Triumphs and Turbulence

by Chris Boardman

  I’d watched as Brad, supported by a team clearly much stronger than the opposition, rode a tactically perfect race. Day after day, we waited for someone to cock-up, or someone to crop-up and take the jersey from him because, well, Brits didn’t win the Tour. It felt akin to my own experience in 1992, where I’d sat on the start line for an Olympic final, knowing I had been the fastest all the way through but still not believing for a moment that people like me could win events like this. It turned out they could.

  Post-stage, the work continued at a frantic pace for the TV crews, as evening highlight shows were crafted and beamed out to a waiting world. Around us, the crowd noise slowly ebbed away to nothing as people drifted off to bars, hotels and their cars to head home. On the slopes below us only a Sky Jaguar and camper van were left in the team parking area, probably waiting for a police convoy to escort them down into the valley. Leaning against the side of the sleek black Jag was Dave B, chatting away to the last few reporters. My work for the day was finished, so the normal thing to do would be to go and say hello to my friend and colleague. But I hesitated.

  From the moment I retired, I have always felt uncomfortable around sporting stars or anyone having their moment in the spotlight. I’ve never been able to pin down exactly why, but I do know a large part of it is not wanting to be thought of as a hanger-on, someone trying to capitalise on another’s success. Here, though, I was torn. I didn’t want to intrude but I would have felt even worse if I hadn’t at least gone down to say well done. Eventually, I pushed my feelings of awkwardness aside and scrambled down the embankment towards Dave and the handful of people milling around him.

  The quietness of the mountainside felt wrong after what had just taken place: a jarring contrast I’d experienced many times around sporting high spots but never got used to. One moment, you are in a soup of noise and emotion, the deafening sound of low flying helicopters and blaring motorbike horns egging on tens of thousands of frenzied fans. Then, an impossibly short time later, it’s all gone, and you’re picking up your bag and heading home just like everyone else.

  Down in the dusty car park, I shook hands with my British Cycling boss and offered congratulations. The words seemed wholly inadequate for what had been achieved. As I leaned against the car next to him, I watched the few Sky staffers left on the hillside shuffle about looking slightly dazed, trying to come to terms with the job being almost done. I hadn’t realised that Brad was actually still on site, holed-up in the camper van behind me, probably enjoying the peace after defending his lead for ten days straight. Urged on by Dave, I reluctantly interrupted the race leader’s quiet time and popped my head around the camper van door. There was Brad, skeletally thin and still dressed in yellow, sprawled on the bench seat, not looking at all like a man about to achieve something no other Brit had done before. More inadequate congratulations followed, then we had a brief chat about the next objective on his list, the looming Olympic time trial.

  Although the Games weren’t due to start for another nine days, they had already made their presence felt in the ITV truck in the guise of what I first thought was a hoax email. Apparently sent by an assistant to the director of the London 2012 opening ceremony, its subject was ‘A fabulous cycling sequence that Danny Boyle would love you to be a featured part of’. It was very short notice for what was a global event, and oddly vague. I strongly suspected a prank was being orchestrated by one of the people around me, so I proceeded with caution.

  After obtaining permission from the BBC to take part if I wished (as they would be my employers for the period of the Olympics) I was sent a very legitimate-looking non-disclosure agreement to sign before I could be given any more details. That done, the following arrived from the cast co-ordinator for the ceremony:

  ‘In brief, the segment is known as the Bike ballet and showcases a variety of different skills, from BMX and Flatland to a forty-strong peloton and giant pyrotechnic bicycle. As you may know, one of the compulsory elements in any Olympic Opening Ceremony is the release of doves. Danny has chosen to do this using bikes with a cyclist whose costume is an enormous set of wings. The role we would like you to take is that of the Hero Dove Bike. This is an aerial role and would be the dove being “released” into the air.’

  Now I was stuck. The source had been authenticated, so it wasn’t a joke, yet what they wanted me to do seemed to be exactly that: fly across the Olympic arena dressed as a giant pigeon, complete with flapping wings.

  I shared the information with Gary and the Doc. Big mistake. Steve turned to me, wearing his most serious expression: ‘Chris, you’ve got to do it, the nation has called, it needs you to be … its Hero Dove.’ The pair of them fell about laughing, describing possible scenarios: ‘Now! Now! Flap harder, Boardman!’ It kept them amused for the last couple of days in France. I politely declined the invitation but was still called Hero Dove until we reached Paris.

  The rest of the race went as expected and Bradley marked his overall victory by delivering a devastating lead-out for his teammate Mark Cavendish to win the final stage in Paris. I winced a little as the Manxman crossed the line, fearing the damage he’d done to his chances in the Olympic road race. It would have taken superhuman restraint and strategic foresight from the reigning world champion to lose in Paris in order to give himself a better chance in London. But there was no getting away from the fact that his victory on the Champs-Élysées had just sent a message to his rivals: ‘If you want to win the Olympics, you absolutely do not want me to be there when you arrive on The Mall.’ It was arguably the moment he lost the chance of a gold medal.

  After the teams had paraded up and down the Champs and the VIPs had quaffed the last of the champagne, we started the long and final pack of the truck. There’s no good way to end a month like that. Everybody who works on the Tour dreams about the fantastic final party waiting in Paris, but every year, by the time we get there, we are all knackered.

  Some immediately head off for planes and trains. Others dash back to our regular Paris base, the Hotel Alison, a lovingly maintained 1970s time-capsule, to dump bags before stubbornly heading out, bleary-eyed, in search of a restaurant still serving at 10 p.m. Having been in the latter group, I woke up next morning thick-headed and threw the last of my stuff into my old GAN team-issue suitcase. The red Samsonite relic saw service precisely once a year, for this event, as it kept a month’s worth of TV shirts pressed and ready for duty. One taxi ride later, I arrived at a heaving Charles de Gaulle and joined the 300 metre-long easyJet queue. As I shuffled forward, I wondered if Brad and the other guys would be on the same budget flight back to Manchester. Probably not.

  CHAPTER 20

  London 2012

  The Holiday Inn Express in Newbury Park was my home for the duration of the 2012 Olympics. It wasn’t exactly The Ritz, but it did have one redeeming feature – it was just 150 metres from the extraordinary Curry Special, a fact that made floor manager Matt Wayne very happy.

  There are people in life who can make pretty much any situation fun and Matt is one of them. We could have been in a plane crash and he’d have admired the view and cracked a few jokes on the way down. In 2010, Matt and I had worked for the BBC at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. On our first evening in the Indian capital a group of us hailed Tuk Tuks – petrol tanks with three wheels crudely welded on as far as I could make out – and headed on to the chaotic streets in search of a curry. After the many media scare stories about security in Delhi, we were pleasantly surprised by the lovely people and vibrant nightlife. It was certainly heart-wrenching to see abject poverty living cheek by jowl with wealth, but at no time did we feel anything other than completely safe.

  The next night, Matt suggested jokingly, ‘Why don’t we go for another curry?’ Which we did. The question was repeated the following evening, with the same result, and what had started out as a joke turned into a challenge and eventually a nightly chorus: ‘Of course we’re going for a curry!’ In the end we managed 12 in a row and in the process fo
rmed what became known in BBC circles as The Curry Club. Myself, Matt and presenter Jill Douglas were its founder members.

  In London, the tradition was continued. After our third visit to Curry Special in as many days, the management realised they were on to a good thing and assigned us our own corner. It was from there, Peshwari naan in hand, that I watched the opening ceremony. No one could identify the Hero Dove but at least I had an alibi. Over the period of the Games, we hosted several well-known guests at our table – the photographs, I believe, are still on the wall – and even appointed Sue Barker as the club’s honorary president, a proud moment in her career.

  On 28 July, the day after the opening ceremony, I dashed down the crowded Mall after completing an interview with Tanni Grey-Thompson for radio. At the second security check in just 200 metres, I did the ‘I’m late’ shuffle and sighed as loudly as I could while the journalists in front of me took ages removing laptops from their bags for inspection. I ran up the gantry steps to the commentary box to join my colleague Hugh Porter, slipped my headphones on, deadening the crowd noise, and hit the red talk button on the console in front of me. Seconds later the first Olympic cycling event, the men’s road race, got underway.

  The GB squad’s tactics for the day were already widely known and had even been fully rehearsed a year earlier in Copenhagen to help Mark Cavendish take the world title. On that occasion, the British team had sat on the front for the majority of the 266-kilometre race, stifling all attempts to form a winning breakaway. I’d commentated on Mark’s win and remembered my mixed feelings at the time. I was happy to see the British flag flying over the podium, but I also knew that the team had just publicised every aspect of their Olympic plan in order to put it there, something the riders had confirmed enthusiastically to reporters in post-race interviews. Cavendish’s victory in Paris the previous weekend had been a reminder of both the plan and his form.

  The GB squad had been kitted out with every advantage the Squirrels could provide: smoothed helmets, tailored clothing, over-socks, even the bikes they relied on as professionals had been swapped for custom machines. But no amount of technology or athletic ability could compensate for the one big difference between this event and their victorious outing of the year before: Great Britain’s team at the World Championships had been made up of eight riders, the Olympics allowed a maximum of only five. That meant four men – with Cavendish held in reserve – charged with controlling a field of the best cyclists in the world. Given this reduction in troop numbers, sticking with the same tactics seemed outlandish, even arrogant. But in the light of recent events, with the British regularly achieving the impossible, no one wanted to say it out loud – including me. And as domestiques go, the group of Brad Wiggins, Chris Froome, Ian Stannard and David Millar might well have been the strongest ever assembled.

  Early in the race, a group of lesser-known riders slipped away to form a break. It was standard stuff and nothing to be too concerned about. As expected, the GB riders lined up at the front of the main field and began to ride tempo. As the laps ticked by, though, some of their more dangerous rivals began to test the water. In the peloton, everyone watched and waited for the big acceleration: the moment when the British would put the hammer down and reel in the escapees, but there was no miraculous injection of pace. They kept things steady and the other favourites kept following. No other nations came forward to share the work because no one wanted to help Cavendish win a bunch sprint. The situation was crying out for a Plan B: a British rider attacking, perhaps – anything to disrupt the grim pattern the race was settling into. Never mind the high-tech kit we’d designed for them, this was more like The Emperor’s New Clothes. Everyone – riders, press and commentators – could see the truth of it but no one was voicing their doubts.

  As the Brits continued to toil away, more and more of their rivals attacked off the front. By the time they entered the final lap of the finishing circuit, more than 20 riders had coalesced to form a strong, well-coordinated group nearly a minute ahead of the British-led bunch.

  Slowly, it began to dawn on those who had kept the faith to this point that there wasn’t going to be a miracle. Team GB had let their chance of victory escape. The breakaway riders might not have been of the same quality as Cavendish’s helpers, but they were working well together and their numbers were now overwhelming. The British team, who had prepared for this day for years, never figured in the race. Alexander Vinokourov of Kazakhstan won the gold medal. Mark Cavendish came in over five minutes down.

  It was an inauspicious start and the British media were a little shaken to see that the all-conquering Brits were fallible after all. Maybe the home Games weren’t going to be the fairytale they’d expected.

  The national mood brightened 24 hours later when Lizzie Armitstead opened Britain’s account with a thrilling, rain-soaked performance in the women’s road race to take silver behind Marianne Vos of the Netherlands. And on day five the gold rush finally got underway with Brad Wiggins’s victory in the individual time trial. The Tour and Olympic double was an astonishing achievement and should have heralded the start of a long reign at the top of professional road racing for Brad. Incredibly, it marked the beginning of the end.

  For the exhausted R&D team, Brad’s win was a morale-booster. He’d done it on a Squirrel-supplied bike, wearing the first of the new aero helmets we’d worked so hard to perfect. The bulk of the products we’d developed, though, had yet to be used in competition. All through the Tour de France and since I’d arrived in London, I’d been in daily contact with Matt Parker who had been frantically managing the final delivery of clothing and equipment on my behalf. The schedule was incredibly tight and a handful of the items were still being manufactured as the Games got underway.

  The road races completed, Hugh Porter and I decamped to the new Olympic Velodrome in Stratford and took our seats in the commentary box for the first of the track events, the men’s team sprint. This would be the first test of a piece of equipment that Matt had been sweating over: the new super-stiff cranks that had been designed primarily for the sprinters. These were the men who would strain the new carbon parts to the maximum, driving more power through them as they burst from the start gate than two endurance riders combined. As they’d arrived only days earlier there had been almost no time to use them in training, so although they’d been fully tested in the lab they’d never been used in anger.

  The stadium was packed to capacity and the heat was stifling. The noise dropped away as the GB trio of Philip Hindes, Jason Kenny and Chris Hoy took to the track for their qualifying ride. No one knew what to expect. Great Britain were the reigning Olympic champions, but they’d lost one of the best starters in the world when Jamie Staff had retired after Beijing, and they hadn’t won a major title since.

  In an event often settled by hundredths of a second, the lack of a strong lead-off man had seen Great Britain slip behind the other major nations. Ironic, then, that it should be one of their big rivals, Germany, who had provided the solution. Carrying dual nationality, 19-year-old Philip Hindes had started out on the German national squad and represented them at the 2010 Junior Worlds. Shortly after, his father’s military career brought him to the UK where he was asked by GB sprint coach Jan van Eijden – also German – to try out for the British squad. Despite his youth, he had been a revelation and progressed rapidly. Even so, he’d made the team relatively late and was short on experience under pressure. He’d certainly never performed on a stage like this.

  The familiar countdown beeps sounded. Half a second after the penultimate tone, the three riders threw their weight backwards in perfect unison. An instant later, as if they had been leaning on invisible giant springs, they catapulted themselves forward in anticipation of the start gate’s release. For a moment it looked like a textbook start, perfectly timed. But there was a problem. Hindes seemed first to wobble, then stall after the first few pedal strokes. Kenny and Hoy passed him and as they entered the first bend he fell sideways
in slow motion to the boards.

  Up in the stands, I was shocked into silence – which is not great for a commentator – convinced that it was the new cranks that had failed, perhaps robbing three great athletes of their chance at Olympic gold, years of work destroyed. I looked on, stunned, leaving Hugh to do the talking as replay after replay passed before us on the screens. Looking at the images, it eventually became clear that it wasn’t the equipment that had failed after all. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  We still didn’t know what the cause of the crash was as the team rolled back to the line for their second and final chance – another botched start and they’d be out. This time the GB three got away cleanly. 43.065 seconds later their qualification ride was over and what had looked like a disaster had been turned into an Olympic record. In the next round they also broke the world record, then broke it again in the final as they beat France to take gold.

  It was only once he had the medal round his neck that Philip Hindes explained his fall. Interviewed alongside Hoy and Kenny after they stepped off the podium, he told Jill Douglas he’d gone down deliberately because he thought his start wasn’t good enough and he knew that a ‘crash’ would ensure a restart! I thought the press – and the French – would have a field day with this admission. It was hurriedly corrected by the GB team and put down to Hindes’ poor grasp of English. The major fallout never came and the standard had been set for six sensational days in the velodrome.