Authors: John Deering
In 1993, when Brad, Ryan and their mum were here as spectators, it was to see their hero Miguel Indurain win his third straight Tour. They craned their necks to see the big man in the yellow
jersey buried deep in the heart of the bunch, safe in the knowledge that his race was won and he could relax in the bosom of his comrades until the final podium presentation later that
afternoon.
The people who’ve journeyed across, over or under
la Manche
to see their own hero nineteen years later are luckier. They not only get to see the first British winner of the Tour
de France, they get to see him lead the whole race under the final
flamme rouge
of the 2012 race. Wiggins is at full gas, the entire race struggling to hold the wheel of the yellow jersey,
riding a newly liveried yellow Pinarello just for the occasion. When he pulls over as the peloton approaches the final elbow, Boasson Hagen takes up his pace and the Manx Missile readies himself.
With a breathtaking blast of pure human muscle power Mark Cavendish hits the front
waaaaay
before anybody else would dream of doing. His initial rush is so great that it opens up a huge
gap over Goss and Sagan. The game is up before there are even 200m left to go.
Of all the myriad eulogies and tributes that will pour in for the various achievements we have witnessed today, few will strike a more ringing chord than US star Taylor Phinney’s tweet:
‘Well, that was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.’
Team Sky have taken first and second place in the Tour de France. They have also won six stages. They are entitled to party. Amongst the clamouring hordes around his feet, Bradley Wiggins climbs
on to the roof of a team car to accept the adulation.
On the podium, he is more sombre. Despite being a trailblazer, there is none of the bluster of the young Armstrong about Wiggins. He has lived and breathed cycling since he was a boy, watched
others go through this magical ritual dozens of times since then. The profundity of the Champs-Élysées podium ceremony is not lost on him. The completeness of his victory has been
clear for a few days now – only two men have finished within ten minutes of him and one of them is his teammate – and he has had time to consider the weight of this moment. Unlike a
dazed footballer who finds himself with the FA Cup above his head minutes after a late winning goal at Wembley, Brad has coasted into Paris with the praise of the race, the press and the world
ringing in his ears and resounding in his head.
The sportswriter Richard Williams dismisses the inevitable comparisons with Great British greats like Fred Perry and Bobby Moore, instead alighting on a more suitable match in Mike Hawthorne.
When he became the UK’s first motor racing World Champion in 1958, Hawthorne broke a long tradition of Italians, Argentinians and French winners, opening the door for the proud list of
British winners that have followed. Perhaps, muses Williams, that will be Wiggins’s true legacy.
His humour, his humility, his honesty, his confidence and his talent have made Brad a popular winner of this race, despite France’s natural antipathy for
les rosbifs.
A great
cartoon in
L’Équipe
shows the yellow jersey’s aquiline profile and sizeable sideburn, with the face furniture neatly shaped into a map of France.
Finally, the presentations complete, the obligatory shots of the winner looking wistfully over to the Arc de Triomphe in the can, Wiggins moves towards his public to say a few words. He has been
planning these lines for some time, certainly the last few days, possibly the last couple of years, or even his whole life. He takes a deep breath and a hush falls as the gathered masses wait to
hear exactly what it all means to this remarkable young man.
‘Right,’ he begins, ‘we’re going to draw the numbers for the raffle now.’
There aren’t many people who’ve been to more bike races than Graham Watson. The world’s best known cycling photographer covered his first Tour de France in
1977 and has been on the road pretty much uninterrupted since then. With his trusty companion and motorcycle pilot, former
Cycle Sport
editor Luke Evans, he sits enjoying what is probably
his ten millionth pre-race coffee in a café near the start of a bike race.
But today is slightly different. For the first time in that long illustrious history of capturing bike races, Graham could have walked to the start from his front door. It’s not even a
long walk; it’s the sort of walk you might take for a pint of milk or the Sunday papers. Because today the world is coming to Graham’s front door. This is Hampton Court, this is London
2012, and this is the Olympic Time Trial. Even cycling photography’s most impassive proponent is excited. Not excited like you or me, you understand, but excited. A little bit.
Graham has been photographing Bradley Wiggins since the late 1990s, but never more so than in 2012, and that’s not a record that’s about to end today.
Outside Henry VIII’s front door, another Olympian is rubbing the sweat off his palms. Former GB Road Champion Matt Stephens was a competitor at Barcelona twenty years ago. Today his
crucial Olympic role is to push off the riders as they sail down the start ramp to begin the 44km that separates them from golden glory.
Spain’s time trial specialist Luis Leon Sanchez barely makes it off the ramp. A broken chain means his day is dead before it’s begun. Oh, and Sanchez will get a puncture before his
ride is over, too. Just how many black cats did he run over on his way here?
Brad is sandwiched between his twin nemeses. World Champion Tony Martin precedes him, and breathing down his neck in the start house is the reigning Olympic Champion Fabian Cancellara.
If there has ever been a crowd like this at a time trial before, it went unrecorded. Every yard of the course is covered with spectators. They were lining the barriers at 8.30 this morning, with
Wiggins not scheduled to start until 3.07 p.m. Over six hours of waiting in the sun in stick-on ginger sideburns, peering at the world through the eyeholes in their Wiggins masks, handily supplied
in this morning’s tabloids for instant use. It’s not an unknowledgeable crowd either. Armed with start sheets, a murmur goes along the barriers as the
cognoscenti
discuss the
next rider as he approaches. Along Hampton Court Way, 10km in, the iPhone timers are out in force, calculations based on the 90-second gap between riders constantly whirring. Who’s winning?
The seeding is working out well enough for the answer to usually be: the next guy.
A rumble of anticipation sweeps up the road about ten seconds in advance of each competitor. When Jack Bauer of New Zealand flies around the corner that brings him into view a gasp precedes him
as his fine margins nearly take him straight into the barriers.
Any notion that this is an ill-informed mob is lost when Vinokourov pounds past. The freshly crowned Olympic Road Champion’s mixed history is obviously well known to this audience and he
travels through to the sound of muted applause and scattered boos in stark contrast to the enthusiastic welcome afforded to everybody else so far.
A massive roar from the direction of the River Thames tells us that Chris Froome is on his way. The British love to adopt a winner. It’s even better if he becomes a winner after
they’ve adopted him, so Chris Froome is greeted like the homecoming hero he is. One of only two British riders in history to step on to the final GC podium in Paris, it’s probably
reasonable to expect his reception will be eclipsed by the other one when he arrives in a few minutes’ time, but it’s hard to imagine this lot getting any more excited than they are at
seeing the Kenyan-born climber in the flesh. He sails through on a tide of noise, the fastest so far.
Tony Martin is on his way now. The cycling fans hold their breath as they await the German, knowing a true challenger to their man has arrived. The other spectators chuckle to themselves,
remembering that Tony Martin was the name of the Norfolk farmer who took a shotgun to a pair of burglars and found himself a
cause célèbre
a few years ago. Martin is
certainly giving it both barrels and comes through the corridor of noise like the proverbial speeding bullet. Fastest.
In some ways, there could be no more pressure on Brad. Those not familiar with the tangled intricacies of road racing were left entirely bemused by Mark Cavendish’s failure to top the
charts on The Mall at the weekend. ‘Seven years he had to prepare for that and he comes nowhere,’ was not a unique reaction amongst armchair sports fans over their newspapers on Sunday
morning. Scandalously, that view was even shared by some ill-informed hacks filling their pages. Cav’s adoption by the Great British public to become BBC Sports Personality of the Year is not
enough alone to earn him exemption from national expectancy. Now that weight has passed to the skinny shoulders of Wiggins. These Games are now into their fifth day and this city is baying for
British gold.
On the other hand, what the hell? This
annus mirabilis
is in the bag. Paris–Nice led to the Tour de Romandie and on to the Dauphiné and up to the Tour de France with
scarcely a misplaced turn of the pedals among them. Unbeaten in long time trials despite Martin and Cancellara’s best efforts, who cares about a little local affair that carries more weight
with the great unwashed than the true devotees who travelled to the Champs-Elysées to celebrate the arrival of Golden Sideburns the weekend before last?
Here comes the answer. The red aero helmet is perfectly still, the spine of the GB skinsuit entirely flat, the pedal stroke impeccably even, the speed perceptibly fast. Powered by noise, the
sound of his carbon disc wheel drowned out by a thousand hollering Wiggo-lovers, he heads to the first time check and a narrow lead over Martin.
Only Spartacus remains. The great man has passed himself fit after inexplicably flying head first into the barriers outside the Star and Garter home for military veterans in Richmond Park during
Saturday’s road race. Destined to be known by thousands of southwest London cyclists as Cancellara Corner forever more, the deceptively innocuous curve had caused a miscalculation in the
defending Olympic TT Champion as he looked behind to discover the whereabouts of the chasing bunch at exactly the wrong moment. Right arm dangling loosely at his side after a hefty thwack on the
shoulder, he ploughed on to the finish in central London, when a quick pedal back to the Swiss hotel at Hampton Court might have been a better plan. X-rays showed no structural damage, but deep
bruising and intense discomfort put his participation in the time trial in serious doubt. Would he be able to hold his aero position for 44km? Would he lose some of his legendary power? With
Wiggins in the form of his life and a sound beating of the Swiss icon in the bag at Besançon just a couple of weeks ago, surely Cancellara would need to be at 100% to retain his crown.
Frankly, despite the welcome from a crowd delighted to see the world’s most popular cyclist on their own turf, it’s clear that this is unlikely to be Cancellara’s day. Rocking
slightly as he tries to find some comfort, it’s clear that he’s not going to be able to stay within the 90 seconds of Wiggins that he needs to get on the podium.
The Tour de France Champion, three times an Olympic Champion, Bradley Wiggins OBE, unbeaten in long time trials in 2012, on home roads. He’s not going to lose today, is he?
*
The Prince of Wales public house is within about 100m of Hampton Court Bridge, separated from the palace itself by the grey water of the Thames. They do a decent trade on summer
weekends and have a lively local clientele on Friday and Saturday evenings all year round. Their busiest time in the hundred years since the doors first opened, however, is around 3.30 p.m. on
Wednesday, 1 August 2012. Several hundred people are crammed into the high-ceilinged main bar where a selection of big-screen TVs are all tuned to the Olympic event unfolding outside. There are a
couple of hundred more in the street outside, pressed to the windows to catch a glimpse of one of the screens. Chinese whispers run through the crowd.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Brad’s coming up to the first time check.’
‘No, that’s Froome.’
‘Oh, OK.’
‘That’s actually the second time check.’
‘Oh. Come on, Wiggo!’
Nobody needs reminding of the sporting rivalry between Britain and Germany. Rumours abound of Bob Paisley gathering his Liverpool players before the European Cup Final against Borussia
Mönchengladbach to tell them, ‘These blokes’ dads were shooting at your dads 30 years ago.’ Multiple international football disasters for England at the hands of the Germans
have not helped home fans, as they cling to the distant memory of their solitary World Cup win in 1966. The Prince of Wales has quite an atmosphere as alongside the Team GB supporters, there are 30
or so noisy Germans cheering for Tony Martin.
It’s not a poisonous atmosphere, but it’s loud, passionate and with an edge, especially when an enormous black, red and yellow Bundesflagge is unfurled and waved maniacally, blocking
the view of the TV. ‘There’s only
ooooooone
Bradley Wiggins,’ to the tune of ‘Walking In A Winter Wonderland’ breaks out through the pub and on to the street.
The crowd is swelling by the minute as spectators heading from the route to the finish realise they’re not going to be able to see anything at Hampton Court. The singing begins to resonate
down the narrow road as the excitement and tension grows.
Martin soars through the second check with the quickest time so far, reawakening the German fans temporarily drowned out by the singing. A minute or so follows with the tension rising as we
await the arrival of Wiggins. A hush begins to fall. The press of the crowd grows as everybody squints at the tiny clock in the bottom corner of the screen. Here he comes. Click. -22 seconds.
Hysteria breaks out. No penalty kick hitting the back of a German net was ever greeted with more euphoria.