Lance Armstrong: my thoughts

Lance Armstrong: a story too good to be true

This week we finally got the USADA report into Lance Armstrong’s doping programme which saw him win seven Tour De France titles.

My feeling on the release is two-fold. Firstly, I am pleased that this is all coming into the public domain; that the dirty secrets that have been assumed for so many years are there for all to see (and read).

Secondly, it is with a heavy heart – heavy because Armstrong’s story was so good I wanted to believe it. As it turned out, it was just too good to be true.

Sunning myself on a Portugal beach a few weeks back I read Tyler Hamilton’s explosive account of life as one of Armstrong’s team-mates on the US Postal team. Bathed in glorious sunshine, I felt sick as I read.

Sick that athletes went to the sort of measures Hamilton outlines. From injecting the blood-boosting drug EPO, to transfusing blood when an EPO test was introduced to avoid detection.

The risk/reward of doing this was not even remotely 50-50 – these were potentially life-threatening actions that were being taken in order just to cross the finish line first. For a man who had flirted with death once – as Armstrong had – to take those risks beggars belief.

In all this, I do feel a tiny speck of sympathy for Armstrong. Team-mates have only ‘fessed up as a result of a safety-in-numbers safety net, reduced bans and having no other alternative.

They made serious money as a result of their cheating, but you don’t see them offering to give it back. All the talk of regret and redemption is a little hollow, and to act like the innocent victim is a little silly.

Armstrong’s biggest problem now, clearly, is one of response. How does he respond? It’s a fairly safe bet he will keep it buttoned. Of course, he should come clean. But he’s in too deep to do that.

Any admission would leave him at the mercy of perjury, bribery and all sorts of other legal proceedings which an admission would make him guaranteed of losing. And Armstrong doesn’t do losing.

And what of the UCI? It has its own case to answer. This story is far from over. In fact, it’s only just begun.

Can Bradley Wiggins lose the Tour de France?

Is a mechanical the only way to beat
Wiggins at this year's Tour de France?

With under a week to go, talk has turned on how Bradley Wiggins can lose this Tour. How times have changed.

Such has been the dominance of Team Sky at this year’s race, we can be forgiven for getting a little complacent. It leads to the obvious question: can Bradley Wiggins actually lose this year’s Tour?

On current evidence, probably not. But here are some ways it could happen:

Crash
Yes, it is a little pessimistic, but a crash could scupper the Kilburn man’s dreams. Assuming he can continue to ride following any crash that may befall him, it shouldn’t have too much effect.

The conceived wisdom that the peleton stops when the yellow jersey crashes/has a mechanical will have even more weight after Wiggins neutralised the group today. It was a canny move which should assure him a safety net against any issues from hereon.

Of course, not everyone buys into it. As Rolland showed today, one person’s misfortune is another’s opportunity and don’t be surprised if a rider placed high in the GC tries to take advantage should Wiggins come a cropper. We can expect Evans to wait, but what of Nibali? Those spats in the press earlier in the race may make a cheeky dig more tempting.

And what of Wiggins’s own colleague, Chris Froome? As Tejay van Garderen showed yesterday, taking a jump on your team leader is not beyond the realms of possibility and Froome’s comments to L’Equipe certainly suggested a frustrated rider.

However exciting the prospect might be, the chances are Froome will obey team orders and wait for his leader in the event of misfortune.

Audacious attack
With just two big mountain stages left, the chances to take a bite out of Wiggins are diminishing. In fact, you could argue the real race now is between Evans and Nibali for a spot on the podium.

For this reason we can expect Nibali to have a go. Assuming the Sky train is in order, the chances of getting the necessary time to bring Wiggins out in a cold sweat remain slim.

This race is really crying out for an audacious attack akin to Frank Schleck on Stage 18 of last year’s Tour. The issue here is that the two riders capable of a punchy attack strong enough to shake off the Sky train – Contador and Schleck – are not in the race.

In fact, the irony is that the one rider who has looked capable of getting a jump in this year’s race is Wiggins’s own right hand man, Froome.

Time trial
The penultimate stage of this year’s race is a time trial, which should play into the hands of Froome and Wiggins, although it’s not without concern.

Firstly, the starting order is dictated by GC position. Assuming neither of the two mishaps above happen between now and Saturday, we can expect Froome to go off just before Wiggins with a two minute deficit.

Of course, this is much harder to manage as the riders will ride alone against the clock. It’s unlikely, but should Froome have a flier and Wiggins fatigue badly, Sky will have the unenviable task of telling Froome to slow down. Now that could get ugly.

The other issue is a mechanical. As Tony Martin has proved twice in this year’s Tour, punctures are not uncommon during a time trial. Should Wiggins have an issue with his bike, it could make things very tight at the top with no unwritten rule to slow his competitors down further up the road or teammates on hand to pace him back. It’s a tenuous proposition, but possible nonetheless.

ConclusionAlthough these are possible ways Wiggins could lose this year’s race, they mostly rely on him being struck down by bad luck. As Cadel Evans showed yesterday, when it’s not your Tour, it’s not your Tour, and this seems to be Wiggins's year.

He missed all the big crashes in week one and even managed to not puncture when carpet tacks were thrown on the road today. In short, unless there is an audacious attack which blows the race apart on Wednesday or Thursday, Wiggins should be crowned on Sunday.

Tour de France 2012: cycling celebrations

Cycling celebrations. They are a curious thing, aren’t they? I always marvel at a cyclists ability to judge the point at which the race is won and that they are safe to take their hands off the bars and celebrate as they see fit.

It raises obvious questions. What if they were to sit up too soon and get caught? What if they were to lose their balance and fall off completely? And is it right to celebrate a win with the same level of premeditation as a footballer unveiling a base layer with a cryptic message on it (© Mario Balotelli)?

Of course, we can blame one man for making the subject a talking point: Peter Sagan (pictured above). The 22-year-old Slovakian rider has taken this year’s race by storm, winning three stages in a thunderous opening week of broken bones, cracked carbon fibre and ‘fankled’ cyclists (© David Millar).

Putting the ease with which Sagan won his three stages aside, the thing that got most people talking was his celebrations.

So, in honour of all this, here are some of the best (and worst) cycling celebrations:

Peter Sagan

Let’s start with the man who has got us all talking. This year’s Tour has seen a plethora of – quite random – film references. 

At Stage 1 we had the clucking chicken, the following day Forrest Gump arrived in Boulogne, before Stage 6 saw the Incredible Hulk.

It wasn’t to everyone’s taste, with Robbie Hunter a staunch critic via his Twitter feed. What is next is anyone’s guess, although as this video of Sagan shows, a wheelie might not be as out of the question as you might think.

Mark Cavendish

If anyone has a right to have a premeditated celebration ready, it is Cav. Such is the prolific nature of his success at the Tour over recent years, it would be odd if he didn’t have something up his sleeve as he rolls out at the start of each flat stage.

We have seen the best and the worst of Cav at the exact moment of triumph. Who could forget his two-fingered gesture aimed at his critics on winning a stage at the Tour of Romandie in 2010? Or the incongruous ‘phone’ gesture at Stage 3 of the 2009 Tour that would have had his team’s sponsors, HTC, purring but made the rest of us feel slightly queasy.

There has been some good though. Perhaps the best being Stage 7 of last year’s race into Chateauroux, where he mimicked the exact ‘hands on head’ celebration he had done at the same finish three years earlier on winning his first-ever stage at the Tour. It was a nice touch and the fact that he remembered to do it was a fine illustration of how clearly he thinks in chaotic sprints.

Bradley Wiggins

Now, you wouldn’t normally expect to see Bradley Wiggins in a list like this, saved as it normally is for sprinters and not GC riders. As Andy Schleck has proved (more on him later) overall contenders can be quite one dimensional in their finishing celebrations.

But Brad bucked the trend earlier this year, winning Stage 1 of the this year's Tour of Romandie with an uncharacteristic sprint finish. The celebration was a fine one – until he realised he was about to lose control of his bike and frantically put his hands back on the bars.

Andy Schleck

Many will miss Andy Schleck at this year’s race. His one-man assault on Stage 18 of last year’s race is exactly the sort of thing this year’s race is crying out for. Whether anyone has the guts to have a dig remains to be seen.

What we won’t miss is his celebration, easily as one-dimensional as Alan Shearer’s goal celebration. He wins, he puts his puny arms in the air, he roars. Every time.

When it all goes wrong

Of course, celebrating too early can often get you in trouble. I think the moral of this story is: don’t celebrate too early. Especially if it’s wet.

Tour de France 2012: why Bradley Wiggins doesn’t need drugs

Bradley Wiggins

Mud sticks, the old saying goes. Or does it?

I can’t say I was surprised to read that a cursory eyebrow had been raised amongst the Spanish and Belgian Twitterati at the sight of Bradley Wiggins in a yellow jersey.

He would have been expecting it, just not so soon. His response was unequivocal, if unnecessarily terse. In a sport blighted by innumerable drugs scandals, it is unusual to see a rider defend himself quite so aggressively when questioned about doping. The applause which greeted his response in the press conference was illustration enough that the endless anodyne answers riders have given in the past have worn a little thin.

But, if not drugs, how has he done it? Firstly, this is not a sudden increase in form. Wiggins finished fourth in the 2009 Tour (on a route which, like this year, suited him), was third at last year’s Vuelta (despite riding with metal pins in a broken collarbone sustained at last summer’s Tour), as well as a series of high profile wins this year. It’s been coming.

The upturn comes from a training regime and application to it that has been unwavering. For more detail, check out the brilliant pieces by Brendan Gallagher and William Fotheringham, who were privileged enough to go and see Wiggins at his training camp in Tenerife earlier this year. Where some use drugs, Wiggins uses application and hard work.

What sort of distraction wearing the yellow jersey will offer Wiggins remains to be seen. It will be like a light attracting those doping questions over the next two weeks. And, as has been documented, once it is on your back, the post-stage routine in elongated by over an hour: the sanctuary of the team bus becomes even further away. If he is to keep it all the way to Paris, it will be a test – on and off the bike – unlike any other.  

But whatever the result come 22 July, we should all salute Wiggins – a beacon of hope at what can be achieved through nothing more than talent and single-minded dedication. And for answering straightforward questions with straightforward answers. 

In his case at least, the mud just won’t stick.

Tour de France hero: Jens Voigt

Jens Voigt: a Tour de France legend. Just don't take
his water bottles and lock up your bike

It is now only 24 hours until the Tour de France rolls out of Liège and I for one can’t wait.


You will no doubt get caught up in the excitement of Cavendish, Wiggins et al – and justifiably so. But, for me, some of the best stories happen away from the glare of the frontrunners. My favourite stories involve the same rider: Jens Voigt. A burly, eccentric German, he is often at the centre of the more bizarre incidents of the race. Here are my two favourites:


The child’s bike incident

Voigt crashed hard on Stage 16 of the 2010 race in a descent of the Col de Peyresourde. With the team cars long gone and his front tyre exploded, he fought hard to avoid the broom wagon (the vehicle which signals the cut-off point of the race and, ultimately, elimination).


Determined to finish the race (Voigt had crashed out of the year’s previous race), he had only one option: borrow a child's bike to ride the remaining 15km until he reached a spare one.

‘By the time you get up and your brain starts working again, I realised that all the team cars had passed me and there would be nobody there to help,’ a bemused Voigt said on completing the stage.

‘I think there is this children's program where they do part of the Tour de France stages. One of those cars came by and they gave me one of their bikes.’ For information, the bike was painted yellow and equipped with good old fashioned toe clips.

‘It was way too small for me, it didn't fit with my pedal system and it didn't really work the way I wanted it to work,’ Voigt said. ‘But it was something to move and I took the chance.’

Voigt went on to finish the stage – and the race.


The water carrier


Now everyone knows that one of the many jobs of a domestique is to distribute water to the rest of the team. This often leads to the ridiculous sight of a rider with bottles shoved everywhere on his person. Even Mark Cavendish was drafted into duty at the Tour of Qatar in February this year.

As a super domestique, Voigt is more used to this task than most. It is not surprising then that supporters often see him as an ideal man for a souvenir bottle to take away from a race. In fact, bottle collecting is becoming a sport in itself on the sidelines of bike races.


Praise then for Voigt. I’ll let him recount the story from Stage 19 of last year’s Tour where he took an over-zealous bottle collector to task whilst riding up Alpe d'Huez:


“With about three kilometers to go I emptied my last bottle and was looking for some kid to give it to. Finally, I saw a young boy standing with his daddy. I rode over to him and slowly and carefully aimed at the kid – not trying to hit him! I just wanted to drop the bottle at his feet so he could pick it up and have a nice souvenir. And that’s exactly what I did.

But then, to my total disbelief a middle-aged guy just tackles the kid like a defensive back in the Super Bowl! And then, while the poor kid tries to regain his balance, the man grabs the bottle and starts putting it away. I watched this and kept on riding, but I was just steaming in disappointment and anger – yes, anger!

So i thought, “No this is not going to happen!” Until then I was having a super day. I was feeling good. The sun was bright and it was just one of those moments when I was proud to be a professional cyclist. I just wasn’t going to let this guy spoil my day.

At that point I just decided to stop my bike, turn around and start rolling down the hill again. All these people on the side of the road are watching me in awe and silence. They were probably asking themselves, “Is Jens going to abandon? Is he injured? Why is he turning around in the final of a mountain stage?” But I was just looking for that man who tackled that little boy. All this time, the crowd remained silent, waiting for would happen next.

Finally, I saw the guy and stopped in front of him and just pointed at his bag and told him that the bottle he grabbed was for this kid standing next to him. Of course at that point he hands over that bottle and I get back on my bike again, and I have to admit I felt pretty good about it.

But then the crowd just erupted and I am sure that at this moment I was getting about as much applause as the guys in the front group with the yellow jersey.”

So, there you have it. Whilst you’re watching Cavendish break into another sprint, or Wiggins cover another attack in the mountains, remember that back in the main field there are people like Jens.


For me, it is guys like him that make the Tour de France the great spectacle that it is.

How cycling changed my life

It all started three years ago. I had always been into exercise – predominately going to the gym two to three times a week. During a tough time personally I decided I needed something different, something to upset the monotony of riding an exercise bike three days a week.


I decided to get an (actual) bike. I never thought it would have the effect it has on me. I started off with a (relatively) cheap mountain bike. My first ride on it – probably the first time I had ridden a bike for 10 years – was exhilarating.


I felt a burst of excitement I hadn’t felt since riding across the grass of my local park aged six, my Nan in pursuit as I pedalled harder, always on the edge of losing control and falling off; it was the first time I had taken the stabilizers off. I still cherish (and long for) the rush of excitement I had that day. My new mountain bike had offered a tantalising glimpse.


Years later, mountain bike in tow, first childish ride out of the way, I threw myself into my new hobby doing early morning rides at weekends. I went out in all conditions – rain, frost, sun. I loved it.


My passion grew – and with it my ability to spend money on kit. From starting out riding around in a fleece from Primark (true) I was now buying superlight cycling clothing and not balking at the pricetag. I was hooked.


Thanks largely to a generous cycle scheme at work I bought a road bike last year. The transition from Primark-wearing, mountain bike rider was complete.


I even rode my first sportive late last year – 100 miles around the same Surrey hills that the professionals will tackle this year at the Olympic road race. It was tough – I am not your typical cyclist at 6’ 5” – but I got there. As one rider with a bovine physique not dissimilar to mine commented on the closing stretch: ‘thank fuck that’s over’. Quite.


But I still love cycling. At a time when I felt a mess, it offered me the opportunity to clear my head and focus on something new. I enjoy the solitude and independence of it. It gives me clarity. Indeed, it is rare that I get back from a ride and don’t feel better for it; even if it is wet, windy or cold – or, indeed, all three at the same time.


It has changed my life. I ran the London Marathon in April this year and I honestly think I would never have done that without taking up cycling three years ago. Instead of music magazines I now read about running, cycling or endurance sport; the science of it is fascinating. I’m even known to buy that bastion of male narcissism, Men’s Health, on occasion.


A psychologist would probably argue that buying that mountain bike was a way of turning my back; the embodiment of running (or cycling) away from my problems. They would probably be right, but I don’t care. Re-discovering cycling took me back to that sun-kissed day in the park with my Nan.


And for that alone, it’s the best purchase I’ve ever made.