Tour de France 2012: Six reasons for Bradley Wiggins's victoryWilliam Fotheringham
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 July 2012 16.24 BST
1 Impeccable planning
Wiggins's Tour win was masterminded by his coaches Tim Kerrison and Shane Sutton. Kerrison broke down the various elements required to win the Tour and was responsible for Wiggins's day to day training, with Sutton acting as troubleshooter and bringing his racing knowledge to the party. Kerrison radically changed Wiggins's training and brought in high-altitude warm-weather training camps in Tenerife. Other elements in the plan included a team built to win the Tour, with a group of strong, talented riders who could ride hard in the mountains or the flat: Christian Knees, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Richie Porte, and Mick Rogers. Another element was Chris Froome, who was there as backup in case Wiggins faltered.
2 Trained early
Wiggins's training programme began on 1 November but he did not merely begin riding his bike and bring in intensity later: he rode at intensities he would normally have hit in the racing season, which is anathema to most cyclists, who have always built up in a more measured way. "Tim took the swimming approach where they train the top end constantly throughout the year. He has totally revolutionised the way we train." This meant Wiggins hit the season running and was able to deal with higher training workloads later in the programme as the Tour drew nearer. That approach involved a huge amount of sacrifice for Wiggins and his family, requiring warm weather training camps at regular intervals in Mallorca and Tenerife.
3 Race tactics
The other break with cycling tradition was to race less often but always to race to win. That took the pressure off for the Tour, as Wiggins went into the race with a perfect season behind him already, rather than the Tour being the be-all and end-all. It also avoided unnecessary travelling and enabled him to get used to the press conferences and other hassle that go with winning. It enabled his team to get used to the job of leading a major stage race – they had won five such events this year, and Kerrison argued that they were more at ease leading a race rather than chasing the lead. Equally importantly, his stripped down race programme left time for lengthy training camps.
4 Timing in his career
By the end of 2010, when he had endured a disappointing first season with Sky, Wiggins's back was against the wall. He had moved to stage racing after fulfilling his Olympic ambitions on the track in 2008, and knew that at the age of 30, he did not have many years left. That knowledge made him decide to adopt a no-compromise approach. He would devote himself to his profession for 365 days a year, rather than backing off in the late autumn as he had in the past. Sutton has praised his compliance to the programme but it comes down to timing: "I said I don't know how long I can keep training hard for, so I was willing to give it 100%," he said.
5 The perfect route
A Tour with two long time trials and relatively few extreme mountain stages was always going to favour Wiggins but having said that he did not lose a second to any of his rivals in the mountains, apart from his team-mate Froome, so he may well have won on an even tougher course. But the incentive of the long time trial at the end, in which he knew he could gain or regain time, meant he had a concrete goal to structure his race, and indeed his season, around. Knowing that the route included two stages in which he could play his strongest card gave him an additional reason to build to the Tour and that was definitely an advantage.
6 Playing field has levelled
There has been a large-scale clear-out of drug-takers at the highest level of Tour cycling, testing has been tightened up, and the UCI has brought in a no-needles policy, and that in turn has created openings for riders who ride clean. That is seen in various ways in the Tour in the last couple of years: an influx of youth and better performances by French riders, who no longer struggle to win stages. Wiggins makes no bones about his opposition to drug use so it is a reasonable assumption that a more level playing field is to his advantage.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/jul/22/tour-de-france-reasons-bradley-wiggins?CMP=twt_gu