Bradley Wiggins (26 page)

Thomas had arrived fresh from Melbourne as a World Champion. The team pursuit squad had done it again, this time on the Aussies’ own turf. In so doing, they had even broken their own world
record set on that golden night in Beijing four years ago. ‘It was a great race,’ said the returning Thomas. ‘It reminds me of Manchester back in 2008, before the Games. We broke
the world record there, as well. I think we made a lot of gains after that and I’m sure we can do the same now.’

He’d also brought home a silver medal from the madison, where he had partnered up with Team Sky’s ‘other’ British sprinter, Ben Swift. The aptly named Swift’s
opportunities had been limited more than most by the signing of Mark Cavendish and he was eager to prove himself wherever he could. A medal at the Worlds could do him no harm.

It was no surprise, against this backdrop, when Geraint Thomas won the extremely short opening prologue at the Tour de Romandie. It was even shorter than a pursuit, and he’d just become a
World Champion in that. He’d beaten defending Romandie champion Cadel Evans and his own leader Bradley Wiggins who were both bothered by late rain. It does seem to follow Brad around at
times. Thomas wasn’t about to have his win and subsequent yellow jersey pushed aside for that, though: ‘There was only really one corner. There’s only so much time you can lose in
one corner.’

Team Sky rode to protect the jersey on the 184km first stage, but Thomas with his track miles was not expected to compete. He was dropped on one of the hills as the climbers began to stretch
their legs, and so was Cavendish. Wiggins then had a puncture as the pace hotted up with 20km to go. The bunch was flying to ensure the distanced sprinters didn’t make it back up for the
finish, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins not only saw Brad back up to the bunch, but carried him right up to the front.

We’ve seen Bradley Wiggins leading out teammates for bunch sprints before, but we haven’t seen him win one. Actually, he won this stage with something akin to a lead-out, putting his
head down and driving for the line from a long way out, but nobody had the speed to come round him. It was quite a moment. ‘It’s really nice to win a sprint like this because normally I
only ever really win time trials.’

It can be hard to make significant time gaps in one-week stage races like Romandie, so organisers often spice up the racing by offering bonus seconds for stage wins. These handy seconds meant
the jersey passed from Thomas to Brad, and the team could concentrate on riding like race leaders.

Those time bonuses were an issue, though. They couldn’t rely on just holding the race together, and Luis Leon Sanchez demonstrated the problem by winning the third stage and moving to
within one second of Brad on GC, even though Brad had finished in the same group. Victory the next day would give him the lead, and that’s exactly what happened. Brad would have to dig deep
if he really wanted that jersey back.

The last stage was a time trial. Now, this might be Brad’s speciality, but Sanchez is the Spanish National Champion and a serial Worlds contender against the clock. It would be no walk in
the park.

It was, in fact, a very fast blast. Brad took a sizeable 1’23” out of Sanchez over just 16.5km to claim the stage and the race overall. Brad’s wingmen Richie Porte and Michael
Rogers finished in fourth and fifth to remind everybody just what a good team this was. Team Sky in its third year was a different proposition to the Mk 1 version.

The final test before the Tour would again be the Critérium du Dauphiné. With two stage race victories under his belt, a third would complete a remarkable spring and be the perfect
springboard for July. The Dauphiné’s Alpine climbs would be a true indicator of the whole team’s form and readiness for the big one.

Brad was second in the prologue, a second behind Australian prodigy Jack Bobridge, and professed himself happy. He certainly looked happy. He was relaxed and chatty, and not at all the frowning
unapproachable Brad of 2010. As with his track career, confidence is the means through which Brad finds his true self and fulfils his ability. There was a lot to be confident about.

Cadel Evans won the first stage, a 187km trawl over six categorised climbs, but Brad took over the leader’s jersey by virtue of his superior prologue. These two were shaping up to be the
main rivals, not just here, but in the main event in July, too.

After a couple of inconclusive stages, one of them won by the team’s ever popular Edvald Boasson Hagen, the real meat of the race lay in the long time trial. Not only was it likely to
prove conclusive, it was over the same roads that the Tour de France’s individual test would use six weeks later. Juicy. In that light, Brad taking half a minute out of World Champion Tony
Martin was delicious, but 1’34” out of Cadel Evans was the cherry on top. Mick Rogers also moved above Evans in the overall standings. With the addition of the rapidly improving Chris
Froome, Sky had three men in the top ten and had won two stages with three to go. They weren’t going to be easy, though.

Meanwhile, another favourite for Paris, Andy Schleck, was having a torrid time. Losing time chunks on the early stages, the skinny Luxembourger was literally blown off his bike by the buffeting
winds outside Bourg-en-Bresse and was struggling to complete the race. It had been a miserable spring all round for him, but he had come into the Tour with poor form before and ridden himself in.
He would remain a favourite.

Team Sky overcame a combined attack by Evans and Vincenzo Nibali over the Col du Grand Colombier the following day, refusing to panic and grinding back up to the break, the team effort led by
Wiggins himself.

The leader was profoundly immovable on the next day’s massive stage, six climbs culminating in the feared Col de Joux Plane. Attacks came and went but Sky and Wiggins were imperious. The
yellow jersey rode tempo the whole way, surrounded by Chris Froome, Mick Rogers and Richie Porte. All four Sky riders had taken up residence in the top ten. The others were going to have to get
used to this. Of his Tour rivals, Evans was aggressive but ultimately neutralised, Nibali distanced, and Andy Schleck abandoned 60km in. Perhaps his tour dreams were looking a bit over ambitious,
after all.

Team Sky controlled the last stage, too, another mountainous ride, fighting off more attempted attacks from the aggressive Evans without ever coming under sustained pressure. At the end the top
four riders on GC were Wiggins, Rogers, Evans and Froome. A job extremely well executed.

‘We controlled it today and have done throughout the race,’ said a satisfied Sean Yates. ‘I think we can be very happy with ourselves.’

Questioned again on whether Wiggins had peaked too soon – the same question was asked after every show of strength all season – Yates gave some insight into Brad’s
condition.

‘I think that what people don’t understand is that Bradley is a fantastic athlete and he’s not reached his peak yet. He’s not trained so hard that he’s going to be
exhausted. He’s just training normally, but he’s getting better and better. He’s not trying to attain his pinnacle right now.’

That’s not what Bradley Wiggins’s rivals would have wanted to hear. His next race would be the Tour de France.

The last road stage before the dash around the Champs-Élysées on Sunday is through the stunning rolling countryside north of Toulouse through Lot and the
Dordogne. With the time gaps settled between the leaders and no great climbs of note, only tomorrow’s test against the clock will provide any opportunity for a reordering of the
classification in this year’s race. Peter Sagan has had the green jersey stitched up for a while thanks to his storming stage wins and muscle-flexing performances on the hillier stages.
Thomas Voeckler has secured the polka dot jersey following an epic Pyrenean shootout with Fredrik Kessiakoff. The white jersey of best young rider is safely in the hands of Tejay van Garderen.

With the sprinters thinking about Sunday, this is the archetypal dead stage. A long day in the sun for rolling along and chatting, pulling faces for the TV cameras, jolly japes like riding each
others’ bikes or doing wheelies, riding pillion on a police motorcycle. A group will go away and end up in Brive-la-Gaillarde ten minutes ahead of the freewheeling bunch, victory going to a
late lone effort by a French newcomer.

Or maybe not.

The first half of this lengthy stage goes to plan, but there are some itchy trigger fingers back in the bunch. The first team to pick up speed and start to chase the breakaways that have been
pedalling earnestly is Liquigas-Cannondale, not for the beaten Nibali today, but for his teammate in the green jersey of most consistent finisher, Peter Sagan.

They are joined by the massed ranks of Orica-GreenEDGE, still looking for some scraps in their barren debut Tour de France. Team Sky move up on the flank, the yellow jersey safe near the back of
the line, but on his wheel the rainbow jersey of the World Champion.

In front of them a number of all-out desperate movers are hanging on to slim advantages for as long as possible as the peloton thunders over the road separating them to set up the big bunch
sprint. David Millar, Alexandre Vinokourov, Adam Hansen and Jeremy Roy all try to maintain their lead. Even Edvald Boasson Hagen has been up the road today – history, alas, fails to record
what José Luis Arrieta thinks of Team Sky allowing a rider to join a break – but has been recalled to help the chase.

The urgency to stay clear and gain a stage win is uncommonly fierce today with the knowledge that this is almost certainly the last chance that anybody but the best time triallists and fastest
sprinters will have to win.

Inside the final kilometre and the bunch still haven’t made contact with the very front of the race, despite speeds of up to 60kmh.

The men with the most hunger to stay clear are the Irishman Nicholas Roche, who has grown stronger with every day in the mountains, and the serial break specialist, Luis Leon Sanchez. Holding
their nerve in front of the wave like fishermen untying their boats in the face of an approaching tsunami, Sanchez manoeuvres Roche in front of him and prepares for the sprint.

Like a frantic game of speed chess, the bunch are trying to catch the escapees and line up their sprinters for the finale all at the same time.

It’s the yellow jersey himself, the man who should really be taking things easy with an eye on Sunday, who leads the hunt. He hits the front of the bunch flat out, stretching the whole
race behind him. On his wheel is Edvald Boasson Hagen and on his, Mark Cavendish. They mop up remnants of the break every few yards, but the line won’t come soon enough for Wiggins to catch
Roche or Sanchez, as the latter begins his move around the Irish rider and prepares to take his second stage of the race.

Mark Cavendish simply can’t allow that to happen. Earlier than he would have chosen, he explodes from Boasson Hagen’s wheel, hurtling down the finishing straight. In the last yards
before his victory is complete, Sanchez suddenly looks over to his right with an expression of pure horror as Cav careers by to score one of the more celebrated of his 22 Tour de France stage wins.
Nicholas Roche has the shocked look of a man who was standing too close to the platform edge when the express train came through. Matt Goss follows Cavendish through for yet another placing,
pursued by Sagan’s green jersey.

They were so close to the line when they were caught that Luis Leon Sanchez and Nicholas Roche are fourth and fifth respectively, in amongst the sprint.

There has rarely been a happier winner of a Tour de France stage, amazing when one considers how many Cavendish has trousered over the past few seasons. ‘I haven’t done nothing this
Tour, so I’ve saved so much energy. I knew I’d be able to go long today and nobody would be able to pass me.

‘We were on the bus this morning and Sean [Yates] said, “OK, it’s just going to be an easy day today,” and I just stuck my hand up and said, “
Pleeeease
,
just give me a chance!” Brad committed straight in, Froomey committed straight in, Mick committed straight in, and the guys were like, “OK, we’re going to make it a sprint
today.” I’m so, so happy.’

‘He’s the fastest man in the world, there’s no doubt,’ said a satisfied Bradley Wiggins. ‘You saw that today with how far out he went, 600m or something, and left
them for dead. I’ve always wanted to do that for him.’

CYCLING WATCHERS HAVE ALWAYS
noticed Bradley Wiggins’s individuality and style. Like many young men who spend their time in sports teams from an
early age, cyclists often have a heightened sense of clothes, fashion, and what they think is cool; it’s all part of the arrested development bubble of being a professional sportsmen. Brad
wasn’t like that though. It wasn’t a case of him following the others; he was interested in other stuff. It marked him out.

As far back as his Linda McCartney days in 2001, Brad was pinning up posters of
Quadrophenia
and watching tapes of
The Sweeney
, immersing himself in 1960s and 1970s London
culture. People often dismiss such things with a casual wave of ‘Before my time, mate,’ without realising that their own culture didn’t suddenly begin the day they were born.
It’s been developing for decades, even centuries. Hitler was before most of our times, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know he was a bastard.