Sir Bradley Wiggins’ withdrawal from the 2013 Giro d’Italia – according to Team Sky’s website “on the medical advice of the team doctor due to illness” – raises questions over how Wiggo will be remembered when he hangs up his helmet.
For a man who has won gold medals at three Olympic games, was the first Briton to win the Tour de France and even had the Queen tap a sword on his shoulders and tell him “Arise, Sir Bradley”, pulling out of a race due to illness surely can’t affect his legacy?
But while it may sound laughable for what is perceived as the dirtiest sport in the world with regard to doping, cycling is a sport in which respect is paramount.
You don’t attack a rival if they’ve suffered a mechanical failure. You don’t attack when someone has stopped to answer nature’s call. You allow the man wearing the race leader’s jersey to ride at the front of the peloton, because he’s earned that right.
But, perhaps most importantly, if you start a race with aspirations of winning it, you show that race the respect it deserves by finishing it.
Team Sky Principal Sir Dave Brailsford said, “As a passionate racer [Wiggins] wanted to continue but he is simply unable to do so on medical grounds.”
There is no suggestion Wiggins isn’t sick – the way he was cycling painted a pretty clear picture – but he’s also not the only cyclist to be struck down with illness or injury mid-way through a stage race.
In 2010, Cadel Evans suffered a crash on stage eight of the Tour de France, fracturing his elbow. However Evans finished the race, pulling himself up some of France’s most daunting peaks on a broken bone, out of respect for the great race and for the rainbow jersey he wore as the 2010 world road champion.
Suffering serious illness in the months prior to the 1975 Tour, Eddy Merckx was punched in the abdomen by a spectator at the top of a climb on the 14th stage, but battled on, before vomiting after crossing the line.
Later in the race, on stage 17, he crashed heavily and broke his jaw. Though struggling to breathe, Merckx refused treatment and not only completed the stage but the Tour too, standing second on the podium in Paris.
Even in this very Giro, Wiggins isn’t the only one to be suffering from a chest infection. Aussie Orica-GreenEDGE rider Brett Lancaster has been “coughing and spluttering” his way through the 2013 edition of Italy’s Grand Tour. But will he be pulling out?
“I wasn’t going to finish the Giro to prepare for the Tour, but I think I’m going to go all the way now. ‘Gossy’ [Matt Goss] is going to… Gossy hasn’t got a lot of support.”
Lancaster will finish not for his own glory, but to help his teammate.
Which brings us back to Wiggins.
The first sign things weren’t all good with Brad was on stage seven, when a crash saw the Brit lose over a minute and a half to leader Vincenzo Nibali and the rest of his team drop back to help minimise the time loss.
Among those teammates who dropped back was Rigoberto Uran, who now sits third overall in the general classification. Of course, if not for the 90-plus seconds Uran dropped to help Wiggins, he could very well be sitting in second.
Which raises the question of why he was asked to drop back in the first place?
A man battling a head cold and chest infection before the halfway mark of any Grand Tour isn’t going to win the race.
In a sport where every ounce of energy expended is calculated, a body battling itself to heal cannot compete against fully fit competitors whose fight is only on the road.
Still, Uran did the right thing and helped his team leader. Since it was for nought, Sir Bradley should do the right thing too.
Finish the race.
Uran is Sky’s best hope of a podium finish – and possibly a maglia rosa – but he will struggle to do it if his team is only eight men compared to the nine of Cadel Evans and Nibali respectively.
Wiggins could take it easy for a couple of days at the back of the peloton and even take on the climbs in the autobus – the mini-peloton for sprinters, who struggle in the mountains – before helping dictate the pace on the flats for some of the latter stages.
Sure he may be sick and it would be insane to push on for another nine stages, but what’s sane about doing it when you’re perfectly healthy? Riding 3,405 kilometres around Italy at break-neck speeds is completely nuts.
Especially if your plan is to then do the same thing around France a month later.
But it’s not a sport of sanity, it’s one of hard men who value pain, effort and respect.
And sick or not, Bradley Wiggins has shown a lack of respect to his team and the race by deciding to pack it in.
His teammates will say they understand why he quit and sing praises of his toughness for sticking it out the way he did.
But Chris Froome – who nursed Bradley through the mountains in the 2012 Tour, admirably if frustratingly refusing to attack his team leader – suddenly looks a far stronger candidate to lead a team.
And when the Tour rolls out on Corsica at the end of June, there will surely be no questions in the minds of the Sky riders who they are there to win for – the man who swallowed his pride for the team, not the man who couldn’t swallow a bit of phlegm for them.
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