British Tour de France hope Bradley Wiggins has said that he and Team Sky have done everything they can to be in the best possible shape for this year’s race. He finished an unexpected fourth overall last year and appears to be ready to push for a place in the final three of the event.
“Having done that last year, this year has been all about the Tour,” he said in a TV interview broadcast today on Sky News. “We haven’t left any stone unturned - all the attention to detail, the equipment, recce all the Tour stages, the major climbs and things like that, so when we get there we know exactly where we have got to be and what gears to use. It is the full-on approach as we used to do on the track, but obviously the goal is different.”
Wiggins went into last year’s Tour publicly saying that he planned to aim for a top 20 finish, but secretly believing that he was capable of aiming for a top ten in the general classification. Things worked out even better than that, and he finished just 37 seconds behind Lance Armstrong’s third place overall.
Since then, he’s signed a multi-million pound contract to compete with Team Sky for four years. He’s been completely focussed on getting ready for the Tour, saying that it simply can’t be likened to any other events out there.
“You realise that when you go to other bike races and then the Tour de France, they don’t even compare. The Tour is just about as big as it gets, and the world is watching the Tour de France for three weeks,” he enthused. “It is a great thing to be part of, and an even greater thing to do well in. It is a bit like the Olympic Games, really. You realise that when you are at the Tour de France that is the only bike race that matters.”
Wiggins is well qualified to compare the two, having won three gold medals in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and gold, silver and bronze four years earlier. He previously focussed mainly on track racing, winning multiple world titles, but shed kilos last year to complete the transformation from velodrome specialist to a rider who could compete with the best in the high mountains.
He’s gone through a similar weight loss regime this year, and the Giro d'Italia stage winner said that he’s exactly where he needs to be. “I have kept the strength and power, which is always important when losing weight, but it has not been easy,” he said. “It has driven my wife crazy, to be honest, but I am good to go now. One more turn of the screw and it would probably break – it is that tight at the moment.”
Because of his achievement last year and also the media attention earned riding for Sky – one of the world’s biggest television companies – there is plenty of focus on him this year. England’s quick exit from soccer’s World Cup will further increase the desire of the British public to see a sportsman from the country take some success. That attention plus the huge salary he know commands increases the pressure on him, but he claims to be able to deflect much of it and not get too worried about what could go wrong.
“I don’t worry about things like that, to be honest,” he said. “I still get paid at the end of the month whether I win or not. It won’t be for the want of trying. We have done everything possible we can to be in as good a shape as possible, better than last year, going through the process. But when I come home, things are still the same when I get back. The kids don’t care either way whatever I do on the bike.
“Just look at the poor English football team at the moment, the way that they got built up. These people build you up, and they are just as quick to bring you down. So I think you have to just get on with it, and do what you can do.”
He concluded the interview by confirming that he had abandoned his Twitter account. He said that the team’s press agent wasn’t happy with much of what Wiggins was writing – colourful language was one feature of his comments – but despite that, that he had considered returning for this year’s big race. However he’s now thought better of that.
“I was going to make a comeback for the Tour, be a bit more controversial, but then you start to do it just to wind people up. That is the wrong time to be Twittering,” he said, smiling.