Bradley Wiggins by John Deering Read Free Book Online Page B

weeks to go, and the action hasn’t even
started in earnest yet.

    THE EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD BRADLEY WIGGINS sat down at Christmas 1998 and thought about his future. He didn’t need any motivation to achieve his
immediate goal: to go to the Sydney Olympics in 2000. He’d been dreaming about it since his first laps round his flats in 1992 as a twelve-year-old Boardman fan. He knew that to make this
happen, he would have to be motivated enough to make 1999 a very hard year indeed. He would need the results to keep him in the frame for selection for Sydney and grow from being one of the
world’s best juniors into a man.
    After Sydney, he would choose from one of the teams that had begun to follow his progress and turn professional, leave the track for the road and become a Tour de France rider. Those had been
his twin ambitions ever since he’d begun racing in earnest at Herne Hill and on the Hayes Bypass: the Olympics and the Tour.
    He settled in well with the Great Britain track squad after his baptism with the big boys in Kuala Lumpur. The professionalism of the track squad was growing year on year and the new line-up for
the 1999 World Championships in Berlin reflected that. Brad, Paul Manning, Bryan Steele, Matt Illingworth and Rob Hayles largely represented the new breed of Lottery-funded full-time athletes whose
goal was medals at the World Championships and the Olympics. They would tackle the team pursuit in a better-prepared state than any team before them.
    They were fifth in Berlin, a good result reflecting an upward curve in performance from previous World Championships, and the team and management firmly believed in their medal chances at the
Games in a year’s time. Rob Hayles and Brad also rode the madison in Berlin where they did well enough to suggest they could take the partnership to Sydney. They would need to keep at it and
avoid injury, but it looked like Brad was now a shoo-in for Olympic selection.
    The winter of 1999 was a strange and exciting time for Bradley Wiggins. In their quest to ride well in the Olympic madison, he and Rob Hayles decided to have a crack at the six-day circuit.
Here, there were many echoes of his absent father, and he met many people who remembered his dad, with reactions ranging through horror via fright all the way to affection.
    The Olympic squad formed in earnest in January 2000. Matt Illingworth had clashed with the coach Simon Jones over the team’s preparation and training methods, and as the most senior member
of the squad felt as though he should have some sway. Jones was keen to be seen as his own man and there was only going to be one winner, especially as Illingworth’s replacement turned out to
be the star of the domestic road scene, Chris Newton.
    By the time they got to Sydney seven months later, the newly GB-suited squad had been through a punishing year during which they had been drilled to within an inch of their lives. The enormity
of the Games was hard to take in for Bradley and he was relieved that the team opted out of the opening ceremony as the team pursuit was to take place at the beginning of the Games programme. He
was in danger of becoming terminally star-struck and needed to focus.
    Atlanta was put to bed on the very first night, when Jason Queally muscled his way to an amazing gold medal in the very first event, the 1km time trial. The whole track squad went berserk
– they knew their confidence was not misplaced and they could take on the world.
    The team pursuit squad went through their solid preparation routine and minutely planned changeovers and speed control in their first round. Jones’s coaching was justified by the setting
of a new Olympic record. The excited team took a breather before their quarter-final later that same night. They cruised past the Netherlands into the semi-finals. A medal, so far out of reach in
this event for so many years, was within touching distance.
    It wasn’t going to be gold, though. The