on your guard, focused and concentrated, ready for any attack at any time.’
Braced for more than six hours of racing, for overexcited breakaways and for probing GC moves, Team Sky put on a dominant display of teamwork, particularly on the climb up Croce Ferrata and the hazardous descent to the finish. ‘We’ve our own style of racing,’ said Knees. ‘As we’re strong throughout the team, we make races hard tempo so everyone has to fight to stay on our wheel. We pull at such a pace that only very few can follow us. The Giro is always a bit different. It’s more chaotic, harder to control. The plan was to get Bradley in pink – any moment would be fine, we didn’t target a stage – and defend the lead. Then life becomes easier. Taking control of a race is what we’re good at. Fighting to get control of a race is more difficult.’
Going into battle with Knees as bodyguard and road captain could be classed as one of Team Sky’s famous ‘marginal gains’. The German – who at 1.94m is unusually tall for a professional cyclist – first rode in support of Wiggins in the 2011 Tour de France. Since then, he has been a key domestique on the flat and in low mountains, a hugely effective windshield and periscope in the peloton. ‘My role is to stay around him [Wiggins] and look out for potential problems. He’s the man who needs to conserve energy. If he sees a hole and moves up, I can expend energy to come up ahead of him to protect him from the wind. He gets a good slipstream behind me. And because I’m so tall, I have a great race overview. It’s a big plus for me and my team. I can see how the bunch is moving. I can see before anyone else if there’s a left or right turn coming. I can assess what the others are doing and weigh up the risks to ensure Bradley stays safe.’
The most demoralising scenario, of course, is when a long spell of hard work is ruined by a moment of bad luck. As the sun disappeared, grey clouds descended and damp fog shrouded the route up Vibo Valentia. Nibali had put on a little look-at-me show of descending bravura, but all was on track. Wiggins, led by Urán, Henao and Siutsou at a pace that had riders falling off the back of the group, was well placed. Could this be the day he went into pink?
But no, the last 20 minutes erupted into all sorts of drama on the descent. A crash involving Cristiano Salerno of Italy on the approach to the final stretch held up the Team Sky leader. Confusion reigned. The 3km rule – which states that riders caught up in such incidents within that distance of the finish line are not penalised – was not applied. The race jury decided that Wiggins had already been gapped in the final run-in and was not hindered by the crash. As a result, he fell from second to sixth in the general classification, 34 seconds behind race leader Paolini. ‘You can gain hard-earned seconds here and there, and then you can lose time very quickly,’ said Brailsford, after confirmation of the results. ‘Ultimately, this first week’s all about staying in contention. This race will be won and lost in the time trials and the high mountains. Bradley’s in great shape, mentally and physically.’
Urán, who moved to second overall behind Paolini, added a further positive perspective. ‘Second for me doesn’t mean anything. Bradley and the GC guys are all up there. Long-term, it makes no difference. I’m not thinking about my position. I’ve other things on my mind – to work for Bradley. It’s a long race.’
Another day, another dramatic crash on the final run-in – this time caused by Luka Mezgec of Slovenia, who skidded across a slippery left-hander in the final kilometre – but Wiggins emerged unscathed and without loss of time. That was a relief at the end of a stressful day for the directeurs sportifs. All the teams had a similar game plan – to be towards the front going over the top of the first big climb. ‘We went full-gas up it for our GC guys,’ said Dario Cataldo, who was recovering from a severe stomach bug. ‘Luckily the descent that followed was dry, because it had been raining heavily before we arrived. Unfortunately Rigo punctured soon afterwards . . .’
Danny Pate took up the story: ‘That was a chaotic moment. We were going really fast. Sometimes directions are hard to take over the radio when you’re riding as hard as you can. The message was they didn’t know where Rigo was. So, I have to go from focusing on the role I’m concentrating on, to trying to find Rigo. I kept rolling . . . He appeared . . . And we both take our front wheels, but they won’t come out quick-release. I’ve never had that experience before! We’re smashing our wheels, and it was sorted pretty quick. Rigo was on and I gave him a push. The two Italian guys helped him back. That was my day over; I could take it easy to the end.’
The effort to get Urán back in the pack was exhausting, but Cataldo, Puccio and Zandio managed it 100m before that last ascent. Afterwards, Ljungqvist was quick to praise Cataldo’s stalwart efforts. ‘He’s done well to battle through his illness and hopefully now he’s coming out the other side.’
According to the team doctor, Richard Freeman, Cataldo picked up an infection early in the race. ‘It’s not unusual. When they’re training hard the immune system is diminished. The first week is actually the time riders are most likely to get sick. Training culminates, and tapers. Travel to the Grand Tours has its risks. They’re mixing with the general public, meeting people from all over the world. Dario was gutted. After months of training, it’s bad enough to fall off your bike – but to go down with a common-orgarden infection is frustrating. Because of the nature of the Giro, it was hard to get on top of his bug. Every day he was exhausting himself, four, five, six hours in the saddle. He was isolated and given his own room. The chef made special food, which I took up to him on a tray. He liked it so much that at 2.30am he called me, wanting more!’
Rain, punctures, crashes, illness . . . The sunny times on Ischia seemed a world away. ‘For sure, it happens every Grand Tour,’ said Dan Hunt, cheerfully. ‘There isn’t a team that doesn’t go through adversity. It’s a “here we go” sort of thing. That’s the kind of sport it is. Illness takes the edge off you, but you tend to get through it in a couple of days. We do express sympathy, but the guys are pretty brutal with each other. There’s a lot of banter and taking the piss.’
‘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.
