profiles, radio information, maps, but there’s always going to be stuff we haven’t raced down. It can be pretty tricky. To my mind, there’s risk and there’s reward, but some guys are definitely big risk-takers. Nibali is known for being good at going downhill, but I’ve seen him crash quite a bit. He crashed twice that same day Brad did, but he doesn’t get shaken up. A guy crashed at the same time, just behind Nibali, and he broke ribs, a scapula and collarbone. That could have been Nibali – out of the Giro, and all for an unnecessary downhill attack.’
Tellingly, Nibali told Italian TV station RAI afterwards that he had not been exploiting the difficulties Wiggins was encountering because he was unaware of them. His team car had been relegated to last position after a previous rule infraction. By the time BMC and Garmin-Sharp had moved to the front to try and force the pace, Wiggins and Team Sky were already bridging back across.
So, Wiggins remained in fourth going into the rest day. The day’s big loser was Ryder Hesjedal, who lost more than a minute to his rivals and slipped out of the top ten after being dropped on the final climb. ‘The stage worked out well in the end for us,’ said Ljungqvist. ‘The guys raced as a team, didn’t panic and that was the key. We were able to chase down the gap and we’ve moved up the GC with Rigoberto and Sergio. We have to be happy with that after a hard stage like this.’
The race moved to the high mountains of north-east Italy to deliver the first summit finish. The climb to Altopiano del Montasio was new to the Giro – one of those supersteep peaks that Ljungqvist jokes the organisers manage to discover each year – and posed one of the hardest finishes in the race. At the toughest part of the ascent, which lasts about a kilometre, the gradient registered 20 per cent. It was a key stage, the day when the big GC contenders came up against the climbers, with a major reshuffle expected in the overall standings.
This is where Team Sky’s Colombian riders – Rigoberto Uran and Sergio Henao – come into their element. Both have superb all-round qualities, but explosive climbing is their speciality. While most professional cyclists spend short periods in altitude training camps (where the body adapts to the relative lack of oxygen by increasing the mass of red blood cells that oxygenate the body), many Colombians have a natural physiological advantage as a result of their country’s topography.
It was no surprise that it was a Colombian 1–2 on the podium at the end of the day, after a stunning solo victory from Urán, who powered off from 8km to go, without getting out of the saddle. Wiggins, meanwhile, saw his team-mate off, but lost touch as the gradient ramped up in that final stretch. He maintained fourth place overall, 1 second behind Urán, losing further time to Nibali.
‘I love the mountains, particularly when I look around on a climb and see how much the other riders are suffering!’ said Urán. ‘Every rider is picked with his own job to do. We all know what our job is and once we have done it we drop back at certain pre-planned points. On a high-mountain stage, once the group is down to the 30 best riders, the pain starts and then I attack. I have other attributes, but I really love climbing.’
‘In the morning meeting it was Brad’s idea to be aggressive with Rigo, and Brad would follow,’ said Danny Pate. ‘We would ride the Sky way, on the forefront, and everyone would just pack up. The plan was to be aggressive and, I guess, progressive. You want to have your own plan and execute it.’
‘It was an incredible day, the teamwork was strong and we rode hard all day to put pressure on other teams,’ said Urán. ‘The plan was for me to attack at 7 to 8km out. Looking at the stage profile card, I knew that meant 30 minutes of effort, giving my maximum at gradient, right on the limit. I knew if I scaled my effort according to the distance, I could win. Over the radio, they were telling me the finish line was close, but when you hear that, it somehow stretches out! You feel you’re never going to reach it. When I actually saw the finish, I felt energy flood through me, even though I was riding off the scale. It was an unforgettable moment. After three Grand Tours, it was a massive thing to win my first stage, an emotional day for me – and for the team, after all the expectations on Bradley and the problems we were encountering. To pull off that win was a special moment.’
‘Rigo’s win was a huge boost,’ said Pate. ‘You finish a tough day with a result like that and it makes you look forward to the next one. If you remember you won on the last hard day, you almost start to look forward to them.’
The day began slowly courtesy of an armistice in the peloton. The previous day’s exertions called for a collective decision to ride a gentle first 60km. Riders enjoyed an easy warm-up before a walloping 120-odd kilometres over the mountains to Erto e Casso. Harried directeurs sportifs, following in team cars, also had a welcome respite from being in ‘red alert’ mode, ever-poised to assess the race pattern through swishing windscreen wipers, to deliver crucial information over radios that don’t always work in mountains and rainstorms, and to offer tactical support as the daily peloton fireworks exploded.
‘DS-ing the Giro, I think, is the hardest job in the world. It’s so chaotic and stressful,’ says Dan Hunt. ‘Marcus, the senior directeur sportif, was doing a great job in very hard scenarios. As it turned out, very few more things could have gone wrong than did in this year’s Giro.’
The fundamental responsibility for everyone lay in ensuring Bradley Wiggins got from Naples to Brescia, safely, healthily, more quickly than his rivals. Wiggins was supported, not just by his eight colleagues in the saddle, but by a Team Sky staff of 22, a roll-call that included directeurs sportifs, performance staff, doctor, physiotherapist, carers, mechanics, chef, press officers and bus driver. All play a crucial role around the clock, but during a race it’s the riders and directeur sportif alone in a bubble of competitive survival. Riders have a manual for the race, but on a bike they can’t access that or glance at a map. They’re in a high-pressure environment – the argy-bargy of the peloton – so it’s vital to receive info over race radio about wind speed or direction, cautions about crosswinds or crashes, wet patches on the road or emergency vehicles, and to receive a countdown of the distance to the start of a big climb so that the team can position itself.
‘The
