That kind of sounds like he gathered all the riders together and did a stand-up routine or sang I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor for them. But no, he’s actually elsewhere, racing on his bicycle.
Specifically, he’s at the Tour of California, an eight-day stage race which isn’t quite as important as it thinks it is – not least for the fact that the form riders are all appearing in the Giro d’Italia right now. Even so, some teams target the race for sponsor reasons and one of those teams is Sky, who are focusing on Wiggins. It’s like it’s 2012 again.
Yesterday was the time trial. Taylor Phinney promised stiff competition, having beaten Tony Martin and Fabian Cancellara against the clock in the Dubai Tour earlier in the year. However, he could only finish third. Second place was the Rider of Rohan (Rohan Dennis) who was, presumably, sort of happy with that result:
“The one person I was worried about was Jesse Sergent as sort of a dark horse. He beat me in Romandie, and I was waiting for his time to sort of confirm that I would get a podium at least. Once that was sort of past I was pretty relaxed, and I was hoping Wiggo wouldn’t take too much time out of me. But he sort of did that.”
He did indeed. Wiggo’s victory margin was a sizeable 44 seconds. However, perhaps more pertinently, he’s back to ‘Twiggo’ weight. Having attained a relatively healthy body mass for last year’s World Championships time trial and this year’s cobbled classics, he’s now reverted to his monastic life of beetroot soup and general denial.
Wiggins is looking to ride the Tour de France in support of Froome, but if he’s in top form and at his lowest weight, he could also aim for a decent overall placing himself. This might be jumping the gun though. The next few days in California should give some idea how he’s climbing.
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