Читать книгу The Pain and the Glory: The Official Team Sky Diary of the Giro Campaign and Tour Victory - Chris Froome - Страница 11
Оглавление‘Our goal will be to keep Bradley, Rigo and Sergio out of trouble and allow the other guys, like Dario, to rest up as much as possible before the tough test tomorrow.’ So declared Marcus Ljungqvist on the morning of a day on which the sprinters’ teams were expected to control things from start to finish. It was a sound idea but, as usual, Lady Luck had other plans. The route hugged the picturesque Adriatic coastline before arriving in Margherita di Savoia, where two laps of the 16.6km Circuito Delle Saline saw the sprinters move into their most maniacal form of queue-barging just as space became tight, making crashes inevitable.
Wiggins, who famously hates the first week of a Grand Tour, had yet another early scare on a fourth consecutive nerve-shredding day. First, he suffered a mechanical problem that forced a bike change. Just as he was settling back at pace, in position on the first of the two laps of the finishing circuit, he found himself barricaded behind a crash and an extensive tangle of bikes, spinning wheels and ripped Lycra. Aided by his team-mates, he managed to hitch back on to the leading group – which had slowed by convention, albeit somewhat reluctantly – and remarkably ended up leading the pack with 3km remaining.
It was an admirable show of resilience, but for road captain Knees it was an equally fretful experience. ‘Bradley needed a bike change minutes before that crash, so although he wasn’t involved in it, he did get stuck behind it,’ the German confirmed. ‘The boys did a brilliant job pacing him back on, but I got caught up the road. It was so loud in the bunch that I couldn’t hear over the race radio what had happened behind me until it was too late. When I found out, I went straight to the front and told the FDJ and Quick Step guys to stop pulling. They agreed to ease off a little, but the pace was still high, so the boys had to ride hard to bring Bradley back on. They did a great job, and I then moved him towards the front to keep him out of any further trouble. This was the last sprint day for a while, so that’s why it was so hectic. We knew we had to stay safe at the front. In the end we did that, so we’re all happy with how things turned out.’
Wiggins was relieved to tick off another stage with his overall title hopes intact. He was one of the first to congratulate former Sky team-mate Mark Cavendish, who – at last – had enjoyed a textbook lead-out from his new team, Omega Pharma-Quick Step. Cav went on to dedicate his win to the memory of Belgian rider Wouter Weylandt, who had crashed and died exactly two years ago to the day.
Ljungqvist was left relieved, if a tad rueful, about the difference a few hours can make to his day-by-day Giro overview. ‘That was a fantastic team performance today and everything worked out in the end. As soon as Bradley needed a new bike, there were seven riders around him and Christian was able to slow things down up the road. It took some hard work to bring Bradley back on, but these guys will recover tonight ahead of a tough day tomorrow.’
