The Medal Factory by Kenny Pryde

Author:Kenny Pryde
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile
Published: 2020-02-06T16:00:00+00:00

* Following retrospective anti-doping tests Juan Cobo was stripped of his 2011 victory and the race win was awarded to Froome in 2019. This meant that Froome became the first British winner of a Grand Tour, a year ahead of Wiggins’ 2012 Tour de France triumph.

8

WIGGY STARDUST

‘Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive.’

Happily for Dave Brailsford – head of both Sky Procycling and British Cycling – 2012 started well and got better as the season unfolded. Bradley Wiggins won the time trial stage at the Volta ao Algarve on 19 February, while his Sky teammate Richie Porte won the overall classification. A little more than a month later, at the world track championships in Melbourne, Team GB put in a series of dominating, medal-winning performances in the Olympic disciplines. Everything and everyone was on track; the stars were aligning.

The modest successes in Portugal were just the beginning for Wiggins, as overall victories in Paris–Nice, the Tour de Romandie and the Critérium du Dauphiné followed before Wiggins arrived in Liège for the start of the Tour de France. It had been an unprecedented, dreamy run. Could Wiggins keep it up and claim cycling’s biggest prize?

As much as any Grand Tour ever could, the 2012 Tour unfolded like a simple box-ticking ‘How to win a Tour’ exercise, and there were few tactical challenges for Team Sky. Thus, Wiggins didn’t take the race leadership too early, enabling Wiggins and his team to keep a low profile in the opening stages before asphyxiating the opposition in the space of three days. Chris Froome won at the summit of La Planche des Belles Filles after a perfectly choreographed Team Sky lead-in to the final kilometres, enabling Froome to claim his first ever Tour stage, while Wiggins took the yellow jersey and followed that up by winning stage nine’s 38 km time trial to increase his advantage. Psychologically, it was perfect for Sky and crippling for the opposition.

The time-trial heavy and mountain-lite route of the 2012 Tour – not forgetting rivals Alberto Contador’s doping suspension and Andy Schleck’s injury-enforced absence – meant it was always going to be Wiggins’ best chance for Tour glory. The Tour being the Tour, there were pile-ups in the opening week, though unlike 2011 Wiggins avoided them, which was more than can be said for that year’s Giro d’Italia winner, Ryder Hesjedal of Garmin, another threat forced out after stage six. In fact, the worst bit of luck Sky suffered was when Kanstantin Siutsou was skittled down and out on stage three. In the 2012 Tour, Team Sky’s problems were mainly of their own making.

Wiggins’ sport director throughout 2012, Sean Yates, revealed, ‘I remember hearing Astana’s Janez Brajkovič saying that everyone else was racing for second place and being pleased to hear it, because that was the mood in the whole peloton. Early on they basically lined up behind us and gave us a relatively easy time.’ If the media was getting excited, if Brailsford was giddy and Wiggins was stressing, Yates was an immoveable rock anchored in the team car.

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