A slimmed-down Wiggins finds his wings in Giro
- By Andrew Hood
- Published May. 16, 2009
For a rider who’s made a name for himself on the track, Bradley Wiggins (Garmin-Slipstream) has been surprising just about everyone when the road turns uphill in the Giro d’Italia.
In the opening two climbing stages in the Dolomites, Wiggins has climbed better than ever before, finishing ahead of the likes of Damiano Cunego (Lampre) and Lance Armstrong (Astana).
“Everyone is so fascinated by it. I am only 27th overall. It’s not really huge,” Wiggins told VeloNews with a laugh. “I really just hung on the other day. I don’t know why it’s such a big fuss. Because I am going to sit up next week, then everyone will ask what happened? Why did you sit up?”
Despite downplaying his performances, Wiggins is clearly on another level at this year’s Giro.
Key to his new climbing wings is his weight. The Brit lost nearly 7 kilos from his fighting weight on the track last summer, slimming down to 71kg for this season.
“I came in with top shape. I had a good spring,” he said. “This is the goal for the year, Giro-Tour, more so the Tour. Everything seems to be going well at the moment.”
Wiggins first struck gold in the individual pursuit as part of a three-medal haul in 2004 and refocused on the track again last summer, defending his title in the individual as well as mining gold in the team pursuit.
This year with Garmin-Slipstream, the 29-year-old is entering a new chapter of his career. Since turning pro in 2001, Wiggins has raced primarily for French teams.
He debuted with the troubled Linda McCartney team and then bounced around Française des Jeux, Crédit Agricole and Cofidis, two years on each team, before signing with Columbia-Highroad in 2008.
Garmin-Slipstream brought Wiggins aboard to add even more firepower to its already stacked lineup for the team time trials, but it’s his climbing prowess that has surprised.
“I wanted to see what I could do on the climbs,” he said. “I want to be ready for the Tour to be able to help Christian (Vande Velde) in the climbs.”
Like most of the Garmin crew, the top goal is to be stronger coming out of the Giro d’Italia and peak in top condition for the Tour de France.
Despite grousing from some rivals like Mark Cavendish that Garmin was too obsessed with the opening team time trial, Wiggins insisted the team has larger goals throughout the race.
“We’re not just here for training, because it’s such a hard race. We want to pick up stages and do what we can. We’re not just here to take part,” he said. “At the same time, I don’t want to finish myself off here at the end of three weeks with the Tour still to come.
“I’m not going to fight every day for three weeks to hold 25th overall or move up, it will just take too much, mentally more than physically. I will take it day by day, at least until the time trial next week, and then maybe go in the gruppetto for a couple of days and take the foot off the gas a little bit.”
Wiggins’ next major goal is the challenging individual time trial along Cinque Terre in stage 12.
That’s when his pursuiting skills will once again come in handy.
“I’m going to go full on — where I get, we’ll see,” he said.
FILED UNDER: Giro d'Italia / News / Road
Andrew Hood
Hood cut his journalistic teeth at Colorado dailies before the web boom opened the door to European cycling in the mid-1990s. Hood's covered every Tour since 1996 and has been VeloNews' European correspondent since 2002. He lives in Leon, Spain, when he's not chasing bike races.