Bradley Wiggins

by John Deering

  ‘I get a bit emotional, to be honest. When you see him sweating up a big mountain, digging in and holding all those other guys who’re trying to spit him out, and he’s just saying to them, “I’m still here.” In the time trials these days, he’s unbelievable. So smooth, so powerful, it’s a shock if he doesn’t win. I’ve known him for such a long time, seen him grow from a boy into a man and become a global superstar, but he hasn’t changed one bit. He’s a bit of a geezer who happens to be the best bike rider in the world. And that’s not a bad thing to be, is it?’

  STAGE 6:

  Épernay–Metz, 207.5km

  Friday, 6 July 2012

  Cadel Evans’s triumph in becoming the first Australian Tour de France winner a year ago was all the more impressive for those he beat. The two dominant riders of recent tours are Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador, and Evans managed to put both to the sword.

  Andy Schleck would have been favourite to win this new edition of the world’s greatest bike race if he’d been here. The Luxembourger has a similar build to Bradley Wiggins: over six feet tall but slim enough to be described as painfully thin at anywhere but a bike race. He has reached Paris in second place three times, despite still being only 27. One of those results was upgraded to the status of champion after the winner was found to have cheated. More on that later . . .

  Schleck has always been a popular rider, largely due to the attacking style that always sees him jumping up the road in the mountains. It’s not just the mountains either: he won a memorable victory in the world’s oldest classic, Liège–Bastogne–Liège by attacking early in the race and riding away from the strongest of fields. His relationship with his older brother Frank is also a fascination for fans, the two of them flanking Evans on the final podium in Paris last year. One school of thought says that the support the two men show each other adds up to a powerful weapon that is worth more than the sum of its parts. Others claim that Andy could make his big attacks stick a bit better if he wasn’t so worried about dropping his brother along with his rivals.

  One thing is certain about Andy Schleck: he is awful at time trialling. Needing to finish within 57 seconds of Cadel Evans to secure victory at the 42km time trial that was the last stage before the procession along the Champs-Élysées, he contrived to lose a staggering two and a half minutes in less than an hour of racing. Given that the three attributes needed to win the Tour de France are habitually given as: a) ability to climb, b) ability to time trial, and c) ability to ride for three weeks without a bad day, it is astonishing to find a champion who is so poor at one of them. His great ability lies in the hills and people love him for his weaknesses as much as his strengths.

  Ironically, it was time trialling problems that led to his disappointing non-appearance in this year’s race. While Bradley Wiggins and Cadel Evans were honing their form for July by riding the Critérium du Dauphiné, Schleck was destroying his own by falling off in the same race. Clearly struggling with his time trial bike in the high winds, he got himself all mixed up in a corner as his disc wheel took a strong gust and control was lost. Though he was unhurt to the degree that he got up and hopped back on at the time, he was clearly in pain, and it was later revealed that he had fractured his pelvis in the spill and would be a non-starter. Frank Schleck would take up the family standard and lead the RadioShack-Nissan team into battle in his absence.

  In each of his first two charges towards yellow, 2009 and 2010, Andy Schleck was up against another modern superstar, Alberto Contador. A glittering career has been dogged by accusations and revelations of doping that have reduced his reputation as one of the true greats to something closer to a pariah. The huge shame is, of course, that Contador’s Tour wins of 2007 and 2009, and the title he was stripped of in 2010, were incredibly exciting races to watch – now forever devalued.

  In 2007, the young Spaniard was following in the footsteps of the recently retired Discovery team leader, Lance Armstrong himself. Already tarred with the ‘doper’ brush after being implicated in the Spanish Operación Puerto (Operation Mountain Pass) drugs case that cast long shadows across all of cycling, Contador found himself cast as the good guy in the Tour as his rival for yellow Michael Rasmussen was thrown off the race. His relentless attacking and refusal to sit down for long in the mountains gained him many fans. At just 24, he was their future.

  They were unable to see Contador defend his title the following year, when the Astana team he had joined after the closure of the Discovery squad were denied entry to the Tour de France due to, you’ve guessed it, previous cheating with performance-enhancing substances. Sitting on a beach after a successful spring 2008, he got a call to say he would be riding the Giro d’Italia, starting the following weekend. He turned up. He won. He went on to the Vuelta a España with a bit more preparation and won that too in short order.

  His 2009 Tour de France plans were complicated by the appearance on his team of the comeback kid. Lance Armstrong, hugely influential at the Astana set-up now that it was run by his old backroom team, decided he still had a point to prove and would come out of retirement. The team went into the race with two leaders and a great deal of internal stress, but there was only one winner. Contador crushed the opposition outside and inside his team with some stunning attacks in the mountains. Armstrong was third with the emergent Andy Schleck splitting the Astana teammates.

  The anticipated showdown between the newly established golden generation of Contador and Schleck raged across France in July 2010. Controversy fired the rivalry, when Contador attacked after Schleck had a mechanical problem on the Pyrenean giant, the Col du Tourmalet. That moment proved pivotal with Spain beating Luxembourg by 39 seconds – exactly the same amount of time Schleck had lost on that stage.

  Bitterness turned to rancour and lengthy arguments when Contador was found to have the forbidden substance Clenbuterol in his system. The case dragged on for more than a year. Contador rode the 2011 Giro in case he was unable, as seemed likely, to be allowed to ride the Tour. He won the Giro at a canter, then gained entry to the Tour after all. However, he wasn’t the force he had been in previous years, either through lack of preparation or lack of illegal preparation, and he ceded control to Schleck and eventually Evans.

  Andy Schleck was retrospectively awarded the 2010 race, but it wasn’t the same as winning in Paris. And he will have to wait until 2013 at the earliest to try that again. So will Alberto Contador, sitting out 2012 to serve his long overdue ban and mourn the loss of many of his victories over the past two years.

  It all meant that the way was clear for Bradley Wiggins to establish himself as the rightful successor to the Tour de France throne. The order was still a tall one: see off Cadel Evans, Vincenzo Nibali, Frank Schleck, Jurgen Van Den Broeck, Robert Gesink, Ryder Hesjedal, Denis Menchov, Alejandro Valverde and any number of day-to-day issues. But not Andy Schleck or Alberto Contador. Brad has 99 problems but the Schleck ain’t one of them.

  *

  Today’s run from Épernay to Metz is dead flat and the last chance for the fast men to flex their muscles before everything tilts upwards in the Vosges tomorrow. A nice steady day, perhaps, a good day for a break full of non-contenders to get away and give the peloton a day off from chasing and crashing.

  I wouldn’t bet on it.

  There are as many incidents today as the rest of the week put together. André Greipel manages to hit the deck twice and dislocate his shoulder before the race gets anywhere near Metz. Things begin to break up, with small groups of fallers and those caught behind them chasing at various intervals back down the road. Race radio is struggling to keep up with the dozens of little accidents and a couple of big ones.

  Team Sky are concentrating on yesterday’s tactic of riding near the front but it’s not easy. Lots of the spills are near the front. There are still 25km to go when the day’s biggest quake hits, with a pile-up sending a shudder of aftershocks back through the bunch. Richie Porte is one of those to lose his wheels and pick up some scrapes and gr
azes in exchange. The main damage is in race terms rather than personal injury though, as a sizeable group is delayed behind the mess, just as the spearhead at the front of the race is driving at top speed to capture the day’s break and set up the big sprint.

  That big sprint doesn’t include Mark Cavendish. The World Champion answers some of the critics of his bike handling as he uses all his teenage BMX nous to avoid the smash that happens right in front of him. Unfortunately, his desperate braking and skidding brings about a puncture instead of a shunt, and he is forced to wait like everybody else. Boasson Hagen is there too, slipping quietly out of the overall top ten with the delay.

  Up the road in the front group, Bradley Wiggins and Cadel Evans would love the time to breathe a sigh of relief, but they’re both flat out to hold their forward positions and avoid any more mess. Cancellara is there, too, his custody of the yellow jersey seemingly allowed to run its natural course and not be taken off him a day early by misfortune. He has worn it easily and proudly for a week now.

  More amazingly, as the remaining contenders line up for the sprint, is the appearance in the Lotto Belisol train of André Greipel. ‘I didn’t want to sprint, but my teammates talked me into it,’ explains the injured German later.

  He won’t be taking stage number 3 today, though. Stage number 3 is instead the reward for the incredible Peter Sagan, showing that he can outpace the fast men on the flat as well as the strong men on the tough finishes. That green jersey is starting to look very comfortable now.

  Time to look back up the road and count the casualties rolling in. Those with pretensions of a decent finish in a couple of weeks’ time include Frank Schleck, Dutch climber Robert Gesink, and Garmin-Sharp’s Ryder Hesjedal, who loses a whopping thirteen minutes plus.

  Two men who will need to steady their nerves this evening are Dave Brailsford and Sean Yates. ‘Five minutes before that crash happened Brad came right up to the front with Christian [Knees] and it was one of the best moves he’s made so far,’ says Brailsford. ‘The first phase of this race is now over and he’s still upright on his bike, which was the main objective, and he hasn’t lost any time.’

  Yates had made a quick judgement call on Cavendish and decided not to call back teammates to assist the sprinter in his quest to regain the front. ‘We found it quite hard to get towards Cav – as did the [neutral service] Mavic car – because of what had happened. We were completely blocked behind the crash and it meant he never really got any help.

  ‘Bradley, Froomey, Bernie, Christian and Mick were all right towards the front and you saw once again how important that is. The worst stages are over now in that respect though and we’re looking in relatively good shape.’

  BRADLEY WIGGINS LOVED BEING back on Team GB. After 2001 had started in such inauspicious fashion, he was riding like a demon all over the continent, attracting admiring glances from more professional teams.

  He even went to the World Track Championships in Antwerp with a broken wrist after a training spill and performed with credit in the individual pursuit, though not to his full potential, which was understandable with the injury. He managed to persuade the management to allow him to keep his place in the team pursuit side and was rewarded with a silver medal.

  A second attempt at professional road cycling awaited after the abortive Linda McCartney rocket had stalled on the launchpad. He would be heading back to France in the Fiesta again, but this time it would be for Nantes, not so far away as Toulouse, and a spot on the well-established Française des Jeux squad.

  The team was fronted by Bradley McGee, an Aussie who seemed to be the perfect role model for Wiggins. A great pursuiter and time triallist, he was enjoying a superb road career with FDJ, achieving Tour de France stage wins and lots of positive publicity for his sponsor. The year 2002 was Commonwealth Games year, and the two men would be expected to meet in the individual pursuit in Manchester.

  It didn’t quite work out like that. The 2002 season was not going to be one to remember for Bradley Wiggins. Keen to impress his new team management and fellow riders, he overtrained in the winter after his wrist injury and arrived in France exhausted and prone to illness. He struggled through lonely days in dreary Nantes and hard races that saw him shelled early and struggling to finish in outposts of French cycling. He was missing the good life of Team GB and, to add to his misery, was a lot worse off financially, struggling to get by on a first-year pro’s meagre salary after the comfort of living at home on Lottery funding.

  But that wasn’t the worst thing about 2002. Brad developed an irrational sense of inferiority concerning his Australian teammate and namesake Brad McGee that completely disrupted what was becoming a good preparation for the Commonwealth Games. Despite his poor spring, Wiggins was coming into form at just the right time. His team’s participation at the Tour de France – Brad had unsurprisingly failed to make the team – had left him free to train to his own metronome in July and he arrived in Manchester in great shape. If only his mind could be told to follow his body.

  Terminally psyched out by McGee, Wiggins slumped alarmingly in the final after a great qualifying run and found himself humiliatingly caught by the Australian. There was no outward sign of disagreement between the pair of Brads at any time – Wiggins has often said that McGee is a thoroughly decent guy and a great bike rider – just this sense on Wiggins’s part that he couldn’t beat him. The disappointment of Manchester was replicated at the Worlds in Copenhagen, where his FDJ teammate’s presence loomed large over him once more.

  Things weren’t going well. FDJ had lost interest in their investment – if they’d ever shown any in the first place – and Great Britain’s greatest track talent was in danger of spiralling away from his goals of World and Olympic glory just when he should have been reaching greater heights.

  Brad was called to a crisis meeting with Peter Keen, Dave Brailsford and Simon Jones. Reminding them all unintentionally that he was still a callow 22-year-old, Wiggins blew his top, suggesting that his medal haul was pretty good, thank you very much, and they should be grateful for what he’d done; not so critical. And it was his ball and he was taking it home. The quartet looked at each other for a few minutes as the dust settled, then began calmly to map a way out of the woods. Before he knew it, Brad was part of the solution and no longer part of the problem. He found himself signing up to a new credo that had one intention: making him Olympic Individual Pursuit Champion at the Athens Olympics, which were now less than two years away.

  The main plank of this ambitious plan was the newly retired maestro, Chris Boardman. Ten years after his own Olympic success had inspired the new Wiggins, The Professor was hired to mentor his protégé to success in Athens.

  If Brad had expected a few cosy phone calls and the odd chat on a long ride, though, he was mistaken. Boardman brought his single-minded scientific approach along with him and spent all day every day working on or with his charge, notating every training ride, every race performance and, most of all, every conversation. Boardman was a man on a mission and was going to be on Wiggins’s case every minute of every day until the destiny of that gold medal was decided. A montage scene of Brad as Rocky Balboa punching huge haunches of meat while Chris Boardman in the Burgess Meredith role looks on holding a stopwatch and urging more and more effort is irresistible.

  Brad had somebody else in his corner, too. He’d met Cath after the Commonwealth Games, a Lancashire girl who’d been around cycling all her life. They’d known each other through association on various junior squads for a few years, but now the two of them were in love and by the end of 2002 they were living together. Brad shelved plans to return to his miserable French existence and spent his second year with FDJ commuting to races from Manchester while Cath finished her degree. Just like his explosive arrival on the world track scene, when it came to girls it looked like Brad had managed to get it right first time.

  The year 2003 was immediately better without being easier. British bike fans had something to cheer ab
out at the classics for the first time since Sean Yates’s retirement some years previously, when Brad made storming albeit brief appearances at the front of the Tour of Flanders and the outrageous cobbles of the Arenberg forest in Paris–Roubaix. From the northern greyness he headed south for the colour of the Giro d’Italia and his first grand tour. It was all part of Boardman’s plan for Olympic domination and FDJ were only too happy to have their second-year pro bolster the team. French teams are notoriously disinterested in the Tour of Italy, so getting a spot was no scramble. Wiggins hauled himself over more mountains and was pleased with his performance over the three weeks. It ended a little disappointingly when he was part of a large group eliminated for finishing marginally outside the time limit on the last big mountain stage. The organisers were expected to allow them to continue but chose not to; it is their right, but not the tradition. The eighteen stages Wiggins had completed would be a source of strength over the rest of the year.

  Given time off from FDJ, as he was not part of their Tour de France plans, Wiggins trained like a demon for seven weeks then travelled with Team GB to Stuttgart for the World Track Championships in great form and full of confidence. There was no Brad McGee to worry about this time; a strong Tour de France for the FDJ leader had turned a little sour afterwards as he was tired and fell ill, missing the chance to take on Wiggins in the pursuit.

  With no nemesis in his path, Bradley Wiggins cruised to his first senior title – Individual Pursuit World Champion. Bursting with pride in his new rainbow jersey, the new champ would be forgiven for wondering on the victory podium in Stuttgart how many races he would be able to wear it in, such is the pro roadman’s dearth of opportunities to ride pursuits.