by John Deering
Garmin-Slipstream had been tremendously supportive and had played a major part in Bradley’s transformation from track star to Tour contender. He was contracted to them for another season, but he wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t been fully aware of developments in Great Britain.
Dave Brailsford, such a driving force behind Brad’s career and the stellar success of the Team GB World Championship and Olympic programme, had launched the monolithic Team Sky upon the world. The team would begin racing in 2010 and nobody doubted Brailsford’s promises that it would be the most professional, efficient racing unit the world had ever seen. It would be a British-based team supporting British riders, providing a conduit for those cyclists who had progressed through the national ranks and were now seeking success on the road. The British riders would be joined by the cream of the world’s available cycling talent.
It was that availability question that was getting everybody talking. Britain’s two best cyclists, the raw emerging talent of Mark Cavendish and the polished, stylish Bradley Wiggins, were contracted to Team Columbia and Garmin-Slipstream respectively. When Team Sky began announcing that riders of the class of Edvald Boasson Hagen would be accompanying British talent like Geraint Thomas and Steve Cummings, Wiggins and Cavendish were the elephants in the room. How could it be a Best of British without them? And who would this ‘British rider winning the Tour de France within five years’ be if it wasn’t going to be Bradley Wiggins?
More than that, Brailsford had been personally instrumental in both men’s careers, nurturing them carefully through the ranks. He was especially close to Wiggins, who would have been uncertain of winning any of his multiple world and Olympic titles without the direct assistance of Brailsford and UK Cycling.
The will-he-won’t-he saga dragged on for much of the remainder of 2009. At one time, Brad would describe reports of him moving to Team Sky as ‘bollocks’; at another, he would cryptically refer to the difference in budget between the two outfits by saying, ‘It’s like trying to win the Champions League. You need to be at Manchester United, but I’m playing at Wigan at the moment. I’ve had a good time at Garmin, but times have changed.’
The old Wiggins hobby of provocatively toying with the press when answering repetitive questions reared its head when asked about a Team Sky contract for the umpteenth time: ‘I’ve still got a contract with Sky for about another year. The wife wants the movie package, and I’ve just got the sports package at the moment. We’ll see. The kids like all the cartoons like Disney Channel and all that, so we’ll probably keep it for another year. But I think TNT has a new package when you can get the movies, the sports channels and all the other stuff for like a combo value; it’s 49 quid a month. We’ll see. I don’t know. I’m thinking of changing my Garmin to Tom-Tom as well.’
It was therefore no big surprise when, after weeks of behind-the-scenes wrangling and coy public statements, Team Sky announced the transfer of Bradley Wiggins from Garmin-Slipstream for the 2010 season. They had forked out £2m to free him from his contract for the coming season and had reportedly tripled Wiggins’s salary to one that they felt befitted a genuine Tour de France contender. They now had their leader.
There had been a noticeable cooling of the relationship between Wiggins and the press over the latter half of 2009. The cycling journalists who were now following his every move were a different breed to the BBC and national press who came out of the woodwork around Olympic time and generally paid cyclists no heed otherwise. The problem with the latter, as far as Wiggins and his ilk were concerned, was a lack of understanding of their sport and the tendency to patronise or unintentionally belittle the subjects of their interviews. The issue with cycling journalists was a much more intrusive one. These guys were proper hardened hacks with column inches to fill every day and every week. They wanted stories, gossip, dirt and scandal. And unlike their more generally minded counterparts, there was nothing these people didn’t know about the sport.
The post-2009 Tour Wiggins was a wary beast, a reticent creature, especially in light of his rent-a-quote past. Journalists who had known him a long time scratched their heads at the transformation, but it wasn’t completely mystifying. Brad was protecting himself and his family as he saw it, playing his cards closer to his chest in an effort to avoid his words being twisted or taken out of context. The downside was that he appeared to be unhappy and unfriendly as a result, just when he was expected to be delighted and excited about his new team. The Team Sky launch turned out to be a rather uncomfortable affair with Brad fending questions without the banter that had accompanied previous similar events. Brailsford alongside him seemed uncertain of how to play it and ended up similarly downbeat. It was all a bit strange.
Stories circulated about Brad being petulant at official team duties such as photo shoots. With the rest of the team behaving immaculately, his attitude stood out all the more. He was clearly not enjoying his part in the media circus of the new team. Maybe he just wanted to be racing again. During this down time in his year either side of Christmas, he would often have been involved with the track squad with the aim of medals at next season’s big tournaments but, for now, track riding was in his past.
He’d joined Team Sky to win the Tour de France.
STAGE 14:
Limoux–Foix, 191km
Sunday, 15 July 2012
Vandalism, civil disobedience and protest have a long history in sport, and the Tour de France has had more than its fair share over the decades.
Just like the ‘George Davis is Innocent’ campaigners who dug up the Headingley pitch overnight before the final day of the 1975 Ashes Test with the Australians on the ropes, there are sometimes unusual outcomes. On that day, the Aussies were grateful to the alleged armed robber’s supporters as the match was abandoned and they scraped a draw at the last Test to take the Ashes 1–0.
Bernard Hinault – he seems to crop up so often in stories – was at the sharp end of the dispute with striking shipyard workers on the Col d’Eze during the 1984 Paris–Nice race. As the men jumped about in the road, bringing the race to a standstill, a bewildered rider was grabbed by one of the protestors. The Badger rushed up and gave the interloper a knuckle sandwich full in the chops.
At Courchevel in the 2000 Tour de France, an ingenious bunch of nutters jumped the barriers complete with bikes and clad in the outfits of their heroes. As Marco Pantani soloed towards the top of the mountain, he was suddenly and unaccountably caught by Fernando Escartín. The Spanish climber had appeared out of nowhere – almost literally it was revealed, as it wasn’t Escartín, but a punter clad in Kelme replica kit. The always excitable finish line voices of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen were entirely flummoxed. The commentators were also completely thrown when a pretty convincing fake Lance Armstrong joined a small group sprinting for the minor placings. A similarly counterfeit Richard Virenque was clearly not on the same juice as the real King of the Mountains as he was easily outpaced by the confused pros.
In 2009, a mass participation event in Perthshire attracting 3,500 riders was targeted by a local church elder unhappy about not being able to drive to Sunday service that morning. He scattered up to 10,000 carpet tacks upon that road, causing hundreds of punctures, untold withdrawals and the suspension of the event.
This last instance of protestation is particularly apt today. Somebody at the roadside on the top of the first category Mur de Péguère decides to pull a similar stunt. The difference lay in the numbers involved – it looks like a box of tacks rather than a shopful – and the fact that this isn’t a public Sunday out, this is the world’s biggest annual sporting event.
A day meandering through the beautiful départements of Aude and Ariège has taken the Tour de France into the Pyrenees. There are two big passes to climb, both on typically small winding Pyrenean lanes, but this isn’t the classic monster mountain stage. You’ll just have to wait a couple of days for that. A select group of classy riders who are nonetheless not dangerous to the overal
l standings has been allowed by Team Sky and the other teams shepherding the peloton to escape.
The sense of comradeship at Team Sky that has been carefully nurtured for the past two weeks in spite of the tweeting about internal rivalries is further enhanced after yesterday’s big team effort for Edvald Boasson Hagen. Today Mark Cavendish is getting in on the act, as the World Champion rides up alongside his leader Bradley Wiggins and calmly tows the yellow jersey and the rest of the race up the first big Pyrenean climb of the day, the pretty Port de Lers. It is an impressive self-effacing piece of work by the avowed non-climber, who will end up crossing the line in 148th place today, nearly half an hour behind the leaders in l’autobus.
With nearly 40km left to cover from the top of the second big climb, the Mur de Péguère to the finish in the valley town of Foix, this isn’t a particularly dangerous route for the leaders, but they are still looking at each other cautiously as they crest the narrow summit of the pass. It is now that Cadel Evans punctures. His team car trapped behind the long peloton as it squeezed over the top of the hill, Evans waits a horribly uncomfortable minute and fifteen seconds before he is able to pursue the men who have left him behind. But then he punctures again. And then, almost comically, a third time. The Australian must feel like the man in the dream who walks into a classroom and realises he has forgotten to put his trousers on, such is the nightmarishness of his situation.
It is clear that something odd is going on. Evans’s teammate, the experienced New Yorker George Hincapie, will later confess to having ‘never seen anything like it’. Up to 30 punctures strike the group. The most serious incident claims the participation in this Tour of the excellent Robert Kišerlovski of Astana, the Croatian climber hitting the tarmac after getting a flat and crashing out of the race with a broken collarbone.
On the narrow descent, the lucky ones that have avoided the beastly tacks quickly realise that all is not well. Race radio has gone berserk, the team directors stuck on the wrong side of the mountain behind the race are all bellowing into their own radios to find out if their riders are affected, and the bunch are all seen putting one finger into their ears or grabbing buttons attached to their jerseys as they try to get some understanding of what is happening behind them.
Without knowing it, Bradley Wiggins is about to cement his reputation as a worthy leader and true sportsman. He immediately slows the descent and quickly and calmly spreads the word to those around him that there is trouble behind affecting Evans among others, effectively neutralising the race.
‘I just thought it was the honourable thing to do to wait for Cadel. No one wants to benefit from someone else’s misfortune,’ he shrugs later.
This unwritten rule has had its fair share of action over the years in the Tour: Lance Armstrong waiting for Jan Ullrich after a crash coming down the Col de Peyresourde in the central Pyrenees, Ullrich waiting for Armstrong after another mishap, the bunch waiting for Marco Pantani to get back up to them after a puncture on Alpe d’Huez. But there have been times when it has controversially not been adhered to, most infamously two years ago on the misty wet top of the Pyrenean giant, the Col du Tourmalet, when Alberto Contador took one look at Andy Schleck’s dropped chain and shot off to gain a 39-second advantage on the stage. Just to rub salt into the aggrieved Luxembourger’s wounds, Contador’s advantage over the second-placed Schleck in Paris was exactly 39 seconds.
One man who is clearly not so keen on the chivalric code is Thomas Voeckler’s Europcar teammate, Pierre Rolland. The Frenchman launches an attack on the descent after Wiggins had brought the race under control with the consent of his rivals, then tries again after they bring him back. His claims that he knew nothing of Evans’s difficulties or of any other riders in trouble mark Rolland as either being economical with la vérité or perhaps being the most vacant rider in the bunch.
A grateful Evans regains the bunch as they coast towards the beautiful little Roman outpost of Foix. They are now an improbable eighteen minutes behind the lead group, where the breakaway riders are trying to figure out how they can eject the green jersey of intrepid Peter Sagan from their midst. The key is held by the crafty Luis Leon Sanchez, who times his attack to perfection to solo into the finish and take his third Tour de France victory. After spending as much time on the deck as in the saddle during the first week, the second week has been an active one for the Spanish break specialist as he tried continuously to land a stage.
Indeed, it is a day of redemption for his Rabobank team. The Dutch outfit is the longest continuous sponsor in the sport and is renowned for the amount of cash they pour in at all levels in the Netherlands, but due to a host of misfortunes they have been left with just four riders in this race. Today all four of the survivors finish near the front of the race, giving them an improbable shot in the arm by not only taking the stage but the mantle of best team on the day.
Cadel Evans gives a signal of thanks to Bradley Wiggins, Team Sky and the other riders who waited for him on the descent of the Mur de Péguère as the big group crosses the line. The tack talk is about to begin in earnest.
Unsurprisingly, Evans’s sporting director at BMC Jean Lelangue is among the first to wade in for some forthright condemnation of the mystery perpetrator, stating that ‘it was a criminal act by hooligans’. It’s difficult to disagree with that conclusion, or the one offered by the man who had only enhanced his reputation on an afternoon of high drama and tension, Bradley Wiggins. ‘What can you do? It’s something we can’t control. It’s sad, but those are the type of things we have to put up with as cyclists. If that happened in a football stadium or wherever, you’d be arrested and seen on CCTV. But we are out there quite vulnerable at times; very close to the public on climbs.’
Not keen on puffing his chest out on the subject of his sportsmanship, Brad was nevertheless persuaded to find some words on Pierre Rolland’s behaviour. ‘I thought it was a little bit uncouth at that time. So many guys punctured at once, it became quite apparent very quickly that something was up. He didn’t just attack once, he attacked twice. It didn’t seem very honourable.’
The Tour de France has suffered at times in the absence of the traditional patron of years gone by, a leader who is universally respected and can be expected to make decisions on behalf of the whole bunch where necessary. In the old days this would have been Merckx or Hinault. Armstrong had authority but not a general mandate, and his contemporaries Johan Museeuw and Mario Cipollini were more popular among their countrymen, but he did keep some kind of semblance of order over the race that he came to own.
Perhaps the Tour found a successor today.
TEAM SKY’S FIRST TOUR de France began inauspiciously. Their declared intent to leave no stone unturned in the search for marginal gains, with no detail too small to matter, meant they pored over weather reports and forecasts before the prologue in Rotterdam. Believing that rain would arrive later in the day rendering the 8.9km course slower, the tactical decision was made to put Bradley Wiggins out early to miss the downpour and set a fast time.
‘Too clever by half,’ rued Bradley later, after he got caught in the showers that arrived earlier than expected, then watched as the hitters shot round a rapidly drying course to render his time something of an embarrassment. Seventy-seventh for a man who had finished third and fourth in the previous two Tour de France prologues he had contested was not the ideal start.
All the talk of the first week revolved around the third stage which would take the field over a big slice of the familiar pavé of Paris–Roubaix. After a protest-driven go-slow had ruined a rain-drenched first stage, deemed dangerous by the bunch after multiple pile-ups, this was the first opportunity for a shakedown. Brad rode with his customary aplomb over the crooked setts, and was delighted to keep a low profile in the Sky team despite a fine eighth place on the stage, as the plaudits all went to his young teammate Geraint Thomas. The youngster had blasted over the cobbles and run the cobblemeister Thor Hushovd close for the stage win, settling for se
cond place and the white jersey of best young rider. He was second overall, too, while Brad was up to fourteenth. Not bad for the nascent team.
The race sped across northern France and down towards the Alps, Mark Cavendish taking back-to-back stage wins for HTC, the new name of the High Road set-up. A tricky moyenne montagnes stage in the Jura followed. Sylvain Chavanel soloed to victory while the favourites kept a close eye on each other on the climbs. Brad picked up a few places as the race shed a few non-climbers and looked forward to tackling the Alps from the comfort of eleventh on GC. The real action would begin the next day with a journey into the mountain bikers’ paradise of Morzine and Les Gets, with a mountain top finish at Avoriaz. This would be where the favourites would show their hands and we would know who was in charge of this absorbing race.
Throughout his long winning streak, the most amazing thing about Lance Armstrong was his invincibility. He never crashed. He never fell ill. He never had mechanicals. He never suffered. It was this aura of untouchability that did for his great rival Jan Ullrich more than anything else: Ullrich simply believed that Armstrong could not be beaten. His comeback had been slightly different. The previous year had ended up with a podium place, yes, but he was in effect well beaten by Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck. This race was turning into a disaster. That force field had well and truly evaporated. Firstly, a puncture on the cobbled stage had left him distanced and floundering in a dusty choke of team cars with no team assistance, chasing alone for miles and ending up with a significant deficit. Another rivet was removed from his cast-iron suit of armour on this stage to Avoriaz, when the great man actually had a crash. Then another. Then another. The only three times anybody could remember Armstrong crashing in the Tour de France – all in one day. He rolled over the line 11’45” after the winner, Andy Schleck.