by John Deering
There was a slight dip in the high the following day when the Australian team pursuit quartet, who’d already beaten a confident England in the previous summer’s Commonwealth Games, hammered Team GB in the Worlds final, setting a new world record in the process.
Brad was delighted with his new-found status and got ready to celebrate in style. He had failed to take The Professor into account. Chris Boardman wanted to know where Wiggins would find the extra couple of seconds he might need to defeat McGee the next summer in Athens, and proceeded to harangue the new World Champion about it all the way back to Manchester. Cath was very protective of her man and hearing him moaning about Boardman’s constant badgering was making her resent what she saw as bullying, but deep down they both knew that Brad just needed somebody to complain to. He knew that Boardman was right, and if he wanted to be Olympic Champion as well as World Champion, it would be with Boardman’s help.
Part of that plan was to get out of Brad McGee’s lengthening shadow and leave FDJ. Boardman was instrumental again, finding a ride for Bradley Wiggins at his old French team Crédit Agricole for Olympic year. Brad left FDJ the present of the Tour de l’Avenir prologue in his last race as their rider and headed back to England.
After a heavy winter of bike riding, partying and moving house, the new team and new programme felt disjointed to Brad and he contrived to suffer an awful spring. He was going nowhere on the bike, backwards on the track and Chris Boardman was pulling his hair out. Problems were beginning to mount, not least because there were other riders with a claim to the Olympic place that, as World Champion, Brad had assumed would be his. Paul Manning smashed him in a pursuit in Manchester. Rob Hayles posted the second fastest time in the world and took a brilliant silver medal in the Worlds. The Worlds were held early to avoid an Olympic clash and Brad was tactfully left out of the squad in an effort to find some form. The three-man push for the two places was thrown into further confusion when David Millar, the World Time Trial Champion, threw his hat into the ring for a place in the individual pursuit and began some testing to see where he stood against the other contenders. Pushed into riding a pursuit for his Team GB masters at the Manchester Velodrome, Brad performed disastrously and abandoned before half distance.
To top it all off, Brad McGee was in great form.
It looked like curtains for the prize that mattered most to Wiggins. He wasn’t even going to get a chance. He wasn’t even going to get on the plane to Greece.
The turning point in Brad’s season came shortly after that unaccountably poor ride in Manchester. Three events in short succession forced him into contention and turned everything around.
First, Shane Sutton barked long and hard at all the other members of the selection committee something along the lines of the old form-is-temporary-class-is-permanent argument. Wiggins was their best chance of a medal no matter what anybody else was doing. He was outnumbered, but he can be a very persuasive man.
Second, Paul Manning did an amazing thing. He called the selection panel and told them he no longer wished to be considered for selection, as he felt Brad’s chances were better than his own and he didn’t want to stand in the way of Great Britain winning an Olympic gold. What a man. Nobody involved in that discussion, least of all Bradley Wiggins himself, will ever forget Manning’s actions, especially as he had a realistic, if outside, chance of a medal.
Third, and altogether sleazier, David Millar was arrested in Biarritz and charged with doping. He confessed and told all, was stripped of his world title, given a ban from cycling and a lifetime ban from the Olympics.
The road was suddenly clear for Bradley Wiggins. It was back on. He struggled over the mountains with Crédit Agricole in the Tour de Suisse and found his legs beginning to come back. Slowly but steadily, he began to find his World Championship form of the previous year. Even Chris Boardman began to ease up on the nagging.
In Athens, Brad went into the competition unseeded as he had missed the Worlds earlier in the spring. It worked in his favour as he threw down the most incredible time of four minutes and fifteen seconds, a new Olympic record and the fastest time in the world since certain types of bikes had been banned for being ‘unsporting’ a few years earlier. It was a remarkable performance, two seconds quicker than McGee and Hayles, although both men turned in thoroughly decent rides. In the semi-final he held a little back, having the advantage of going last due to his incredible morning ride. He still managed to slip under McGee’s ride by nearly a second. The two men would be riding against each other in the final of a major tournament again, but surely this time Wiggins could banish any negative thoughts.
Bradley sat at the doping control after his semi-final ride alongside Chris Hoy, who was there to be tested after storming to gold in the kilo. It says everything about the way Great Britain has come to dominate the recent Olympic track events that the IOC decided to remove one of Sir Chris’s favourite events for London 2012, yet the great man found something else he could win instead. On that day, however, sitting beside Hoy who was flushed with his victory, Wiggins could not bring himself to even look at his teammate’s medal. He wanted one of his own.
McGee. His old nemesis. Could he overcome those negative thoughts?
Oh yes, he could. Bradley Wiggins cruised to victory. Bradley McGee held him tight for the first 2,000m, but the second half of the race was a different story as Wiggins inexorably slipped further and further ahead of his old rival. Displaying all the Olympic spirit that great champions seem to muster at their worst moments, McGee was the first to congratulate the new champion.
‘Representing Great Britain, Bradley Wiggins.’ Just re-reading those words and hearing in your head that first restrained chord of the national anthem – will we ever tire of it?
Bradley Wiggins, individual pursuit Olympic gold medallist.
There was a silver in the team pursuit, too, then a brilliant bronze in the madison with Rob Hayles. Brad was the first British athlete since Mary Rand in Tokyo in 1964 to win three medals in a single Olympics. He was promptly awarded an OBE.
And just before the Games had begun, Cath had given him the news that he was to be a father.
STAGE 7:
Tomblaine–La Planche des Belles Filles, 199km
Saturday, 7 July 2012
Chris Froome first permeated the cycling public consciousness during the 2011 Vuelta a España. He and Bradley Wiggins rode brilliantly on the climbs to the Sierra Nevada and the ski station at La Covatilla to show themselves and Team Sky as the dominant force in a race short on favourites. The pair’s power on the climbs and their similar looks – long, rangy riders with smooth, steady rhythms – made them an easily recognisable duo, and it looked for all the world as though Wiggins would become the first British winner of a grand tour.
The race’s long time trial, approximately halfway through the mountainous three-week race, was the designated moment where Brad would ride into the leader’s red jersey. However, not prepared for the altitude of the day’s parcours and guilty of not judging his effort, Wiggins faded over the second half of the ride and missed his chance. The man who grasped the nettle without even realising it was available was a bemused Chris Froome, now leader of the Tour of Spain, the world’s third biggest bike race.
Team Sky had a decision to make. What would the plan be now? Shane Sutton, Dave Brailsford’s right-hand man, was hastily parachuted in to help the team’s inexperienced DS, Steven de Jongh. Sutton was clear: it’s all about Bradley.
The next day, another mountain top finish, was illuminated by the odd sight of the race’s leader dragging an elite group to the finish while his team leader cruised along on his wheel. The Spanish press were outraged, declaiming Team Sky’s tactics as disrespectful to the illustrious history of their race. The team responded that they were following a plan that had always been in place, a plan that they felt was their best chance of winning the race. The day looked like a success: Froome’s outstanding efforts saw him eventually dropped, the d
omestique-cum-leader-cum-domestique giving everything for Wiggins. The Anglo-African collapsed into his seat on the Team Sky bus at the finish at Montana Manzaneda safe in the knowledge that his work had put his more illustrious teammate back into the jersey he had worn that day.
Team Sky had made one miscalculation. The final week would see the race head up the Angliru, the Asturian mountain that boasted the tag of The Hardest Climb in Cycling. With some stretches reaching 24%, it’s ridiculously steep for a major race. Too steep for Wiggins, it emerged, when, despite more selfless work from Froome, he lost more than the minute he held over Geox’s Juan José Cobo and with it the race lead.
What now? Team Sky decided to go on the offensive with both riders. Perhaps, if they could put Cobo under pressure over the remaining days, one or other of them could isolate him and take the jersey back. Peña Cabarga, the last hilltop finish of the race, represented their only chance. It also happened to be in JJ Cobo’s back yard, and the local boy could count on massive support, spilling over at times into vitriol at the British riders’ nerve in trying to take their hero’s glory.
Froome was phenomenal. He attacked; Cobo responded. He went again; Cobo caught him again. Cobo passed him and headed for the line. Froome caught him on the last corner, passed him and took the stage; but Cobo preserved his lead. Wiggins battled but failed to stay within touching distance of the two climbers.
It had been an incredible race. Two British riders stood upon the podium at the finish of a grand tour for the first time in history, but neither of them had won, despite each of them having held the leader’s jersey during the last week. Great success or massive disappointment?
The post mortem was a difficult one for Team Sky. They had to learn from the experience. Had they made mistakes? Hindsight said that if they had thrown their support behind Froome after he originally took the lead, he would have kept it all the way to Madrid. However, it seemed disingenuous to blame management tactics. Wiggins was definitely the team’s big hitter; he had a fourth place in the Tour de France under his belt, victory in that season’s Dauphiné, and he was committed and rested after his early Tour exit. Froome, on the other hand, had emerged only as a useful domestique that season and had few laurel leaves topping his name on the list of races he’d ridden.
The discussions took place behind closed doors. What would happen if this situation were to repeat itself remained the secret of those who had contemplated it. One thing was clear: Chris Froome would not be underestimated by his team in the future. In the face of stiff opposition from teams searching for a potential Tour winner, Brailsford tied his newest star to a lucrative long-term contract.
Team Sky would head to the Tour de France with both men in their ranks.
*
Bradley Wiggins knows that 7 July 2012 may not be the day he wins the Tour de France, but it could easily be the day he loses it.
Two years ago, in his first Tour as leader and his first Tour at Team Sky, the first mountain stage was a massive disappointment for him. He couldn’t stay on the wheels of the leaders and he would spend the rest of the race riding for as high a finish as possible rather than the yellow jersey. The intense heat and the intense pace as the select group of twenty or so men left Morzine in the Alps for the finish above at Avoriaz had proved too much. No amount of tactical skill or team support can help at moments like this; it’s just the rider against the mountain. Against his competitors. Against the world.
This moment has many names. The crunch. When push comes to shove. When the needle hits the record. Showtime. Whatever you want to call it, Brad knows that it’s coming, and it’s coming today.
Team Sky, like most of the big squads, have already been to La Planche des Belles Filles to have a look. Not only the first important point of this year’s Tour, it had never featured in the race before. There were no old-timers around to give their advice and reminisce about ancient ascents, where the moves would go, where to dig in. That was probably not such a bad thing in Sean Yates’s case. He had famously given teammates in the Tour of Britain detailed advice about the steepest climb in the race – which gear to use, where to attack and so on – before it turned out to be a different route to the one he thought he remembered.
There’s a more technical and professional approach these days for most teams, spearheaded by Team Sky’s demands for every last scrap of advantage, the marginal gains Brailsford is so keen on. Rod Ellingworth, the team’s race coach, is charged with preparing the team for key moments such as this, and he had led the earlier visit to the little-known road in the Vosges. Before today’s stage, the team sit back in their Lay-Z-Boy chairs on the bus, listen to Ellingworth’s instructions and watch his film of the road a little more intently than on previous days.
Today it is Team Sky’s intention to take control of the race. On the understanding that Fabian Cancellara’s hold on the yellow jersey is likely to end on the 13% ramps towards the top of the last climb to the line – he has admitted as much himself – then Bradley Wiggins should inherit it if all goes to plan. It is decided, therefore, that the team will ride as if already in possession of the golden fleece, as leaders protecting it rather than pretenders coveting it.
There are 190km to ride before the bottom of the climb is reached, with a pair of third category mountains to clear on the way. Team Sky ride at the head of the race all day, daring Brad’s competition to challenge them. Christian Knees is in charge for the early part of the day, the thin, aptly named German’s legs pumping smoothly on the front of the peloton for mile after mile. Team Sky, of course, have a plan for the ascent of La Planche des Belles Filles itself. Though it hasn’t featured in the race before, amateur riders familiar with the hills of eastern France know it as the climax of the tough Trois Ballons sportive beloved of this region, and the Saturday throng is lined along the wooded verges long before the race arrives.
When it does, it is the Norwegian Champion’s jersey of Edvald Boasson Hagen that leads the way, his broad frame shouldering up the centre of the road, leaving the entire field strung out in his wake. His effort is so intense that the field splits behind him and the breakaway riders that have been out in front since the outskirts of Tomblaine are swept up immediately. Behind, it is the turn of Lotto Belisol’s leader Jurgen Van Den Broeck to get some bad luck, as the aggressive Belgian needs a bike change at the worst possible moment. He finds himself not only needing to chase but separated from the front of the race by the back half of the split peloton. He is the second overall challenger to have a bad day, as Ryder Hesjedal’s problems from yesterday’s crash have forced him out of the race for good. The third big name to get a kick in the teeth is Alejandro Valverde, an untimely puncture victim.
Boasson Hagen is ‘puddin’ da hoid on’, as Cadel Evans’s New York teammate George Hincapie would have it. But behind him, Richie Porte, Mick Rogers, Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins are all cruising, a menacing sight for the other riders. For some team leaders they’re not a sight at all, as Robert Gesink disappoints the Dutch who have wagered thousands of euros on him and drops away, as do Frank Schleck and Andreas Klöden. It is, indeed, showtime.
At the front, it’s time to really stick the knife in. After Boasson Hagen’s sustained power, Richie Porte cranks it up, then it’s over to Chris Froome. The team’s true climber takes up the lead for the steepest portions of the road. There are only a dozen or so riders left, and Evans is seriously exposed by his lack of teammates, especially compared to Team Sky’s numbers. The defending champion responds to his difficulty with immense strength of character and launches his move. Wiggins stays calm, knowing that sudden accelerations are not his forte, and continues his high tempo ascent, while Froome covers the Australian’s move. There are only yards left to the line, and as the road steepens for the last time, Evans falters and Froome takes full advantage, charging past him to snatch the biggest win of his career. Brad matches Evans pedal stroke for pedal stroke and crosses the line inseparable from the champion, two seconds b
ehind the ecstatic Froome.
‘It wasn’t the plan to go for the stage, it was just keeping Brad up there,’ grins a breathless Froome a few minutes later. ‘I gave it a nudge and couldn’t believe it when Cadel didn’t follow my wheel. I’m speechless. That was a dream come true. I’m chuffed to bits.’
Evans is a gloomy figure in the face of Team Sky’s dominance as he looks into the near future: ‘We could have taken a more aggressive role in the race, but when you see Wiggins has three guys with him and I’ve got one, or I’m isolated already, what can you do? It showed the strength of their team.’ It’s not a bad day for Evans, however, as he surveys the damage behind and reasons that he’d lost time to nobody, unlike the vast majority of his competitors. He is full of praise for Froome, a figure he’d known little about before this season: ‘Froome was incredible – he rode on the front for the last 3km or something and he was able to follow me and accelerate past me.’
A princely sideburned figure takes his helmet off in the background and breathes deep lungfuls of mountain air. The Tour de France’s travelling city generates a huge amount of carbon monoxide through its thousands of vehicles and mobile generators, but it is unlikely that any air ever smelled sweeter. Bradley Wiggins had ridden like a true leader and a confident winner – a man here for one reason only and with a team powerful enough to carry him there. Bradley Wiggins is the new leader of the Tour de France.
‘My priority was to watch Cadel because I knew I was going to take yellow,’ said the Londoner, as composed and analytical as ever. ‘It’s fantastic. Froomey’s taken the stage and is King of the Mountains, and I’m in yellow, so it was an incredible day.’