Less than a fortnight from the biggest race of his life, Bradley Wiggins sounds relaxed and confident.
Speaking from Mallorca and his final training camp before the Tour de France, his voice comes clear over a slightly frayed line from the Mediterranean. He readily engages with questions on topics as diverse as team selection and choice of equipment, and sounds as excited and pleased as any of his army of supporters when discussing the results from his most recent training session.
This is not the sometimes recalcitrant Wiggins of recent memory, newly burdened with leadership and struggling to retain his identity as a man used to winning by his own efforts. Nor is it the exasperated race leader who tweaked the media’s nose after his sprint victory on the opening stage of the Tour de Romandie, demanding better questions from his interrogators. Instead, Wiggins is sincere but laid back, seemingly welcoming the opportunity to share his progress, rather than resenting the intrusion.
He remains, however, realistic. This year’s Tour will be tackled on a day-to-day basis, in the same fashion as competitive outings from his track days to the successful defence of his Criterium du Dauphine title two weeks ago; an approach galvanised by the hard won knowledge that “it can all be over in one split second,” as had been the case on stage seven of last year’s race when he arrived, as he will again this year, with victory in south east France fresh in the memory.
Wiggins will focus instead on “things that are imminent” and not concern himself, he suggests, with the final time trial in Bonneval. It’s all very well having an amazing time trial bike, he reasons, referring to an earlier reference to the wheels he had chosen for victory in the second solo test at the Dauphine, but to make use of it he must first arrive at stage nine, and later at stage nineteen.
The weight of expectation that accompanies the level of success Wiggins has enjoyed this year (victories at Paris-Nice and the Tour of Romandie to complement his second Dauphine triumph) is not a burden, he says; pressure lies in the opposite direction, fielding questions ahead of a race for which form is lacking. He contrasts his current position with that of 2010; a Tour in which his admission that he was not a realistic contender for victory came at the end of stage 14 and as a blessed relief to a rider shouldering the hopes of the newest and richest team in cycling’s top tier.
Conspicuous among Wiggins’ many achievements this season is the lightness with which he now wears the mantle of team leader, and a confidence that seems to stem from total faith in those around him. He will not have a hand in selecting the team for the biggest engagement of his career, he admits, nor does he want one. The team’s selection panel, which, he says, constantly monitors the data of each member of the team, is paid to make those decisions so he can be free to focus solely on his performance. “Everyone’s got their role within this team, and everyone fulfills that role. It’s not for me to worry in March, or April, or May, who the Tour team’s going to be. I concentrate on what I’m doing, and get the result. They will decide the strategy that we’re going to go with at the Tour, and they’ll put a team in place to go and do that. It’s a simple as that really,” he says.
Wiggins has taken a similarly hands-off attitude to evaluating the Tour’s parcours. Not until very recently, when his son arrived on a family visit to the training camp with a Tour guide bought to ease the boredom of the flight to Mallorca, had Wiggins senior encountered the stages in sequence. He has, he admits, performed a reconnaissance of the key climbs of the race, but would be unable to say on which stage they occur. To concern himself with the challenges of an individual stage too far in advance would be a distraction, he argues, and with some justification: treating each day as it comes has been a policy followed as recently as the Dauphine, and one that has now placed his entire focus on the prologue time trial in Liege.
As he enters the final stage of what he insists has been a season-long preparation for the Tour, momentum seems to be with Wiggins. Does he agree? Partly. “I think a little bit of everything really,” he says. Momentum, yes, but also maturity, learning to train to a pitch that a big success no longer requires a prolonged recovery. “All those things: self belief, the confidence of winning those races. I think it’s just building the momentum, but also the plan has always been to be good in July physically.” Victory has been a sweet but unintended consequence of preparation for the Tour, he maintains.
Wiggins has worn the national champion’s jersey with distinction, carrying the red, white, and blue bands to victory on some of the sport’s biggest stages, but he will not be at Ampleforth on Sunday (24) to defend his title. “I knew from the start of the year that this whole project was uncompromised training for the Tour de France and that included sacrificing the national road race,” he admits. A race of this nature would not be ideal preparation for a prologue time trial in the world’s biggest stage race.
Wiggins’ date with destiny is drawing near. He seems comfortable with the fact; ready to engage with the challenge, not overawed by its scale. Who knows how much may be deduced from a cross Continental phone call, or from victories in races, however prestigious, less than half as long as the one he will now try to win. But Wiggins speaks with the assurance of a man in the form of his life, and if confidence counts for anything, he will justify his place among the favourites in Liege on June 30.
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