Defending Double World Champion Bradley Wiggins
Story posted March 15
By Larry Hickmott
In the track centre for the next three weeks will be a rider who did what no other British athlete had done for decades at the last Olympics – win three medals including a Gold one which came in the Individual Pursuit. Bradley Wiggins OBE.
I think it is fair to say that he did not really get the nationwide credit he deserved for that effort compared to the publicity afforded other athletes and that is probably more because journalists dipping into cycling here and there fail to realise just what a great achievement that was and the level of competition there is in the World of track cycling. Which is also perhaps why the public themselves fail to realise how special that effort was.
In less than two weeks however, on his home track, Bradley Wiggins who signed for formidable pro team High Road this year, will again start his Olympic quest with a big test at the Manchester Velodrome in the form of the UCI World Track Championships. There, he is looking to win double Gold and qualify a Madison place at the Olympics. Should he do all that, yet again it will be a very special achievement indeed. Who knows, he may even be part of a World Record!
It will not be easy though for the rider who is year by year getting closer and closer to being an elder statesman in the GB team. It’s 10 years since he won a World Junior title (Cuba) and in that time he has been to two Olympic Games (Sydney and Athens), won Gold in one of those and been World Champion four times (2003, 2004 & 2006).
When we spoke to Brad as he did some equipment testing in the Manchester Velodrome track centre, he pointed out it was two weeks to the day before his event and that he was “quite excited” by the prospect racing at home after a winter of preparation. “The chance to win World titles in Manchester is a fantastic opportunity”.
Back in 2000, despite only being 20 at the time, Brad was already an established GB rider when he raced in the Team Pursuit at the Manchester Worlds 2000 saying “having experienced the atmosphere of a home worlds before, this one will be massive when you look at the way tickets are selling out.”
In the build up this month to the UCI Track Worlds, Bradley Wiggins was in California at a team training camp and then raced the Tour of California. He was then supposed to go to Paris-Nice but was pulled from that event due to the uncertainty over whether the UCI will be applying sanctions to riders competing in that event. So Brad returned to England and had to miss the British Madison Championships due to illness.
Asked how he feels now, he replies “I have recovered from that quite well. If ever there was a time to get ill, it was then because I was supposed to be having a rest period then anyway. I seem to have come back from that with no ill effects on the track in terms of training so I was pretty lucky.”
Talking about being pulled from Paris-Nice and whether there was a silver lining in that pre-Worlds, he explains “yes, that was a blessing in disguise looking at the weather and the crashes in the race. It gave me the chance to come back and train with the boys in the Team Pursuit so its been ideal.”
You can tell it’s Olympic year because the competition for places in the Team Pursuit is hotting up. Road stars like Steve Cummings are returning to the track as is Mark Cavendish in other events. Brad agrees that its great to see everyone being available, adding “there is more pressure on riders this year as everyone fights for their place and that’s good.”
“No one has accepted they have an automatic place in the team this time round. There are potentially six guys who could ride just as fast as each other which is encouraging for all aspects because it doesn’t take a lot for some one to be lost due to illness. It has got to a stage where no-one is really irreplaceable which is a good position to be in and at the same time keeps everyone on their toes.”
Whilst riders like Steve Cummings and Ed Clancy rarely compete outside of the Team Pursuit, Bradley has three chances of a Gold medal in Manchester. Can he win three?
“Why not?” he says. “In the Individual Pursuit I am going as fast, if not a bit faster than I have in the past so that should be exciting. In the Team Pursuit, the boys are going just as fast as I have ever seen them go. Paul Manning for example is probably in the form of his life and I have never seen him go as well as this. G (Geraint Thomas) too has come on so much since last year when he did his first Tour de France.”
“So that also is going to be very exciting and I think we’ll be close to the World record if not bettering it. I think we’ll be faster than we were at the Worlds last year and we were .5 off it. I think if ever there is an occasion to do it, it’s here because of how fast the track runs, the conditions, the way everyone is going and if we can get through the next two weeks without crashes or illness then we’ll see. Unfortunately we lost Chris Newton though a crash so anything can happen.”
“In the Madison, we all know how good Mark (Cavendish) is on his day when he’s the fastest man on the road and potentially on the track as well. It seems like a dream combination the two of us when both of us are going well and I hope we see evidence of that at the Worlds.”
“We haven’t been in a position like this for a long time or been this confident going into a major Championship. Not over confident, just a quite relaxed confidence. There is no stress that the Worlds are in two weeks time. Everyone is confident of where they are and we’re looking to go out and do a job without getting overawed by it -- it is just another race at the end of the day. We have been in this situation so many times, out on the line with a full house that we’re kind of used to it.”
Brad then tells us how he was only explaining to one of the other riders that it was 10 years ago that he won his first set of Rainbow stripes in Cuba for the Junior Individual Pursuit. “Time has flown by and its frightening how fast its gone. I’ll be going to my third Olympics this year and potentially going for my seventh Olympic medal. Even so, I’m planning to go to the next Olympics after that (London) and who knows, even the one after that perhaps”.
Team Pursuit in Majorca and another Gold for Bradley.
Favourite Event?
For a rider who has had success in three separate events (Individual Pursuit, Team Pursuit and Madison), I asked which one is his favourite that drives him more than any other?
“For me, the Individual Pursuit has always taken the priority because it’s normally the first event and is the one event I can control as an individual. However, over the last two years I have started to give equal emphasis to the Team Pursuit because of the importance of that event. I think when we were doing 4.02/4.01 it was never a problem to focus on it.”
“Like, I flew out after Gent to Sydney and two days later we got up and did a 4.00. However, to talk about five seconds off that for the World Record, you really need to put the time in so I have given equal emphasis to both events as I do want to win double Gold in both at the Olympics.
The Madison though is tagged on at the end and I’ll get up and do that off the back of the work I do for the Pursuit and Team Pursuit.” Brad admits with Mark Cavendish away racing on the road, they won’t have the time to do a lot of work before the Madison, or at least the technical aspects of it like the hand sling.
Different Pursuits
Bradley and his second Rainbow jersey in the Individual Pursuit last year in 2007. The first as a senior was 2003 in Germany.
Talking to the riders in the Team Pursuit, it is clear that the Team event is quite different to the challenges for the Individual. So who better to explain it than a rider who has been doing the event for almost a decade.
“My job in the Team Pursuit is a lot different to say Ed’s or Paul’s. Ed has the job of starting us off (accelerating quickly to 60k an hour) while my job is to hold the speed those boys put me at with a view to doing longer turns later on in the race -- lap and a half turns for instance -- to take the pressure off those guys and delivering G so he to can keep the speed up and go longer.”
“Paul and Ed have probably had the hardest job in terms of getting us up to speed in two laps and we then hold it for them and they give us what they can after that. So the team is made up of your sprinter types like Ed and then the engines to keep the speed constant”.
And does having to do the Individual event the day before take its toll? “Yes and no. It can be quite difficult as physically the Individual Pursuit takes a fair bit out of you but at the same time it is nice going into the Team Pursuit knowing you have done something the day before. The other Team Pursuit lads though have had to watch the racing and it can be worse watching someone competing. Once you have gone out and felt it in victory, you come out the next day thriving on the night before. I kind of like it that way”.
The Madison
Peter Kennaugh (inside of the track), now in Italy preparing for a road season there, slings in Mark Cavendish on their way to the British title a few weeks ago. One of the options for the British team is to team Cavendish and Wiggins up for the Madison event.
A few weeks ago, Brad was due to do the British Madison championships but illness after the Tour of California put paid to that challenge. For the World Track Championships, Great Britain have nominated four riders for the event, two of these are Brad and Mark Cavendish whilst the others are probably Rob Hayles and Geraint Thomas. All four of these riders have been competing at the UCI World Track Cups and of them, three have an impressive record in the event.
Both Bradley Wiggins and Rob Hayles have an Olympic medal from Athens as evidence of their talent for the race and Hayles and Cavendish won the World Title in 2005. Who rides is anybody’s guess but one possible line-up is Wiggins and Cavendish with the latter winning the British title with Peter Kennaugh two weeks ago.
“Mark had a pretty rough winter after a successful season on the road and I think there was a lot of expectation on him at the Gent 6 Day and he was openly slated by a lot of people over Gent. So I think he’ll be out to prove a point about what matters, and what is important in the big picture, its not the Gent 6 -- it’s the Worlds and Olympics. I have been speaking to him a fair bit the last few weeks and he’s in good shape, better shape than he was last year at this time.”
Asked what it is like racing with Mark in the Madison, Bradley explains “the height difference takes a bit of getting used to. I only ever rode with Rob at World Championships and so on but with Mark, the height difference between us could not be any more different. So we try and ignore it and get on with it. Technically we’re not brilliant and do lose a lot on the changes compared to some teams but at the same time, the World Championship event tends to be hell for leather anyway with teams all over the place.”
“The physical aspect out weighs the technical ones and you can be the best technical team on the track but finish last -- we’re hoping sheer brute force gets us through it!”
“Finishing second in the Beijing World Cup with Mark being below par does give us confidence but at the same time a lot of people will be looking to us now and whether that goes against us I don’t know. I think we’ll be heavily marked as a nation in the Madison but at the same time, as long as I can keep everything together and get Mark in for the sprints and try and not let anyone get way, then physically people will have to beat us.”
“When you have some one like Mark who is clearly the fastest on the track you can be marked as much as you like and then when you get into the second half of the race, if you have the fitness over everyone else, then that is when teams start to fall apart.”
What about the six day stars who know the event so well? “Risi and Marvulli are one of the favourites but it depends on how they come out of the six day season. Schep and Stam too. The trouble can be you get a lot of teams like that looking at each other and marking each other out and you end up getting a nation that isn’t being marked taking a lap. That happened in Beijing and is how Mark and Rob won the Worlds in LA. That is always a danger and we’re going to try and rise above that and treat everyone the same and as a danger.”
“We’ll hopefully get the odd session in the week before and base our effort on past experience. That is partly why we did the Gent 6 Day -- to get some time together in a Madison otherwise we would have had little time together. We have though done enough Madison work in the past to get us through this.”
Beyond the Worlds
For the last Olympics, the Worlds were in May – this time they are in March. Is this better or worse for Bradley I ask? “This is better for me for sure. I have time to have a break, do things like the Giro and then have a good run at the Olympics.”
And will having got a place in the Giro help his Olympic chances? “I think Cycling Weekly made a big deal out of it (not being selected for the Giro at first) like my life depended on it but for me, I can pretty much do anything like the Dauphine, Dunkirk and simply raced more. The Giro is just a sure way of getting three weeks racing under your belt.”
“It’s important to also remember that Team High Road are going into that to win races and get results and I’m not just riding round in preparation for the Olympics.”
Road riding
Bradley Wiggins looking lean and fast in training last week at Manchester.
Finally, it emerged during the chat that there are times when Brad will sit himself in front of a big plasma screen at home and ride the now almost worn out Cateye turbo for four hours. That, as any rider will know, is some feat and one that deserves an Olympic medal in itself.
Such rides are not common and more about keeping out of the cold and rain during winter when conditions are simply unsafe outside. Getting the base work in though is mainly done abroad as he explains. “I do ride the road for two to six hours here in the winter but thankfully we’re away in training camps in Majorca or High Road team training camps elsewhere most of the time.”
“Where I am based is quite nice for cycling south of Preston. I can ride down to the national forest but wherever you cycle these days, you get the typical character in a red Range Rover Sport coming towards you down a narrow lane. That comes with the job these days and everyday you go out cycling, there is the risk you can fall off and not through your own fault. It is part of the job and I don’t stress about it anymore.”
For now though, the road work is done and Brad is doing a lot of heavy work on the track putting the finishing touches to his pursuit work prior to Manchester 2008. The template he says for the run in is already there and he’ll follow that all the way to opening night on March 26 and fingers crossed, Gold medal number 1 and a lot of material for his forthcoming book which is expected to be published post Olympics. Thanks to Brad for his time and good luck to him and his teammates for their events.
PALMARES
Olympic Medals
2000 Sydney Olympics: Bronze, Team Pursuit
2004 Athens Olympics Gold, 4km Individual Pursuit; Silver, Team Pursuit; Bronze, Madison
World Championships
1998 UCI Junior Track World Championships (Cuba) Gold, 2km Individual Pursuit
2000 UCI Track World Championships (Manchester) Silver Team Pursuit
2001 UCI Track World Championships (USA) Silver, Team Pursuit
2002 UCI Track World Championships (Copenhagen) Bronze, Team Pursuit
2003 UCI Track World Championships (Germany) Gold, 4km Individual Pursuit, Silver, Team Pursuit
2007 UCI Track World Championships (Majorca) Gold 4km Individual Pursuit; Gold, Team Pursuit
Commonwealth Games
2002 Commonwealth Games, Silver 4km Individual Pursuit; Silver Team Pursuit
RELATED LINKS
British Cycling Websites World Track Championships Home Page
2008 Copenhagen World Track Cup
News
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GB Chasing Women's Olympic Spots
Interviews
Back to the Fold for Steve Cummings
Steven Burkes Steps up a Level
Chris Hoy Interview Feb 7 - 2008
