Icons by Bradley Wiggins

Author:Bradley Wiggins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2018-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

A slightly haunted, Italian-handsome rider with jet-black hair, a rainbow jersey and the thousand-yard stare of a troubled genius.

Open YouTube and watch the 1992 World Championships Road Race. It’s in Benidorm, and there’s a group of about 15 guys coming to the finish together. In it you have people like Induráin, Rominger, Luc Leblanc and Steven Rooks. It’s the cream of world cycling, because the merely very good have long since been dropped. The reason is that at 260 kilometres the course is long and hard, they’ve been up and down for six and a half hours, and it’s as hot as hell. At times like that it can feel like you’re riding in a kiln.

Among them you have three overwhelming favourites. The first is Laurent Jalabert, the Tour de France green jersey. He’s one of the classiest bike riders on earth, and he’s lightning fast. The others are a very talented Russian named Dmitri Konyshev, and Gianni Bugno, the reigning world champion. It’s a slight drag up to the finish, but objectively one of these three is probably going to win because on paper they’re the best sprinters.

Given that it’s hot, it’s uphill and they’re exhausted, the finale seems to take place almost in slow motion. As a bike rider you know how it feels to be scraped out, so it’s quite a tough watch. They get out of the saddle and, as best they can, attempt to summon something resembling a sprint. Some of them sit up straight away, because they know they can’t get a medal and their tanks are completely empty. Others keep flailing away at it, but in reality they’re just grovelling – they look like they’re riding through quicksand. A couple actually produce a passable impression of a sprint, but one seems not to be sprinting at all. While the rest seem to be breaking their necks simply to get over the line, he looks like a tourist. His cadence doesn’t seem to alter, he doesn’t seem to be extending himself, and yet somehow he just seems to float away from them.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you … Gianni Bugno.

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