BRADLEY WIGGINS almost QUIT during his victorious Tour de France campaign.
Former Team Sky general manager Sean Yates has revealed the first British
winner of cycling’s greatest race almost quit after being dropped by Chris
Froome in the mountains.
And the ex-deputy to Dave Brailsford had to be brought in to diffuse the
situation.
Even though he was 10 stages from winning the Tour in Paris, Wiggins texted
Yates: “I think it would be better for everyone if I went home.”
The Stage 11 incident is seen by many cycling fans as the moment Froome showed
his true potential as a then future Tour winner.
And Froome went on to win this year’s race by 4mins 20secs.
But in 2012 Wiggins was struggling up Alpine mountain La Toussuire, four
kilometres from the end, Froome was protecting his Sky team-mate up the
climb and got dropped.
For a couple of minutes Wiggins was riding on his own, then Froome came
thundering back and straight past, leaving Wiggins on his own and exposed to
attacks from other teams.
And Yates scrambled to play peacekeeper at the team hotel later that night.
He said: “He couldn’t understand why Froome had gone back on the agreement,
especially when everything was going so well.
“There were only four kilometres left at that point and Brad went on to win by
three minutes, so the maths say that he would still have been comfortably on
top in Paris.
“However, his mental state was always fragile, and that psychological blow
could have been a knockout one.”
Yates left Team Sky 11 months ago after pressure over his connection to drug
cheat Lance Armstrong.