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Tour de France 2012: Bradley Wiggins set to win

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Tour de France victory for Wiggins now a formality after sensational time trial win

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UPDATED:

16:55 GMT, 21 July 2012

Bradley Wiggins is set to become the first British winner of the Tour de France after an imperious victory in the stage 19 time-trial to Chartres.

In the 99th edition of the sport's most fabled race, the 32-year-old Londoner is poised to ride Sunday's 120-kilometre 20th stage from Rambouillet to the Champs-Elysees in Paris knowing he will return home victorious.

Triumphant roar: Bradley Wiggins celebrates after crossing the line

Triumphant roar: Bradley Wiggins celebrates after crossing the line

Top boys: Wiggins with team-mate Christopher Froome

Wiggins in action

Top boys: Wiggins with his team-mate Christopher Froome

Wiggins, a three-time Olympic champion,
began the 53.5km time-trial from Bonneval to Chartres with an advantage
of two minutes five seconds over Team Sky colleague Chris Froome and
enhanced his hold on the maillot jaune with a scintillating display
against the clock to take a 3mins 21secs lead into the final day.

Wiggins completed the route in one hour four minutes 12 seconds.

Tour delight: Wiggins celebrates winning stage 19

Tour delight: Wiggins celebrates winning stage 19

Froome was 1min 16secs slower in 1.05:29 to place second on the stage and all but confirm second place overall, with the final stage effectively a procession to the finish on the Champs-Elysees.

Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) is set to complete the podium despite not being in contention on Saturday. The Italian finished in 1.07:51 to place 16th on the stage, 3:38 behind Wiggins, and fall 6:19 adrift overall.

Out in front: Bradley Wiggins on his way to victory in the time trial as he closes in on victory in the Tour de France

Out in front: Bradley Wiggins on his way to victory in the time trial as he closes in on victory in the Tour de France

The margin of Wiggins' victory answered many of those who questioned why Froome, who appeared marginally stronger in the mountains, was not Team Sky's Tour leader.

Team Sky were launched in 2010 with the stated aim of winning the Tour with a clean British rider within five years – it is a target Dave Brailsford and his squad, through Wiggins, are set to achieve in three.

Froome is also on the verge of history – no Briton has finished on the Tour podium in 98 previous editions, with Wiggins' 2009 fourth place equalling Robert Millar's 1984 best. Now there are set to be two.
The last time two riders from the same nation finished first and second in the Tour was 1984, when Laurent Fignon finished ahead of Bernard Hinault.

Out in front: Wiggins will be the first Brit to win the Tour

Out in front: Wiggins will be the first Brit to win the Tour

Hinault's second place two years later behind Greg LeMond was the most recent time two team-mates held the top two positions in Paris.

Wiggins has been in stunning form this season, winning the Paris-Nice, Tour de Romandie and Criterium du Dauphine stage races, and has carried his form into the Tour, which featured more than 100km against the clock.

He was second in the Tour's prologue on July 30 in Liege and has remained in the top two of the general classification since, taking the maillot jaune on stage seven and winning stage nine and today's penultimate stage.

Wiggins, wearing the maillot jaune for a 12th day, was the last of 153-strong peloton to roll down the starting ramp to begin a route south-west of Paris where there was a large British presence, with Union Flags heavily in evidence.

Buddies: Wiggins' team-mate Froome in action

Buddies: Wiggins' team-mate Froome in action

Luis-Leon Sanchez (Rabobank) began 88th and finished the route in 1.06:03 to be the early leader.
Wiggins was focused as he rolled down the start ramp into a familiar domain – against the clock – and assumed his time-trial position, a still upper body, legs pumping like pistons.

At the first time check, after 14km, Froome was fastest in 17:01, but Wiggins went 12 seconds quicker still.

Froome kept the pace up to lead at the second time check, after 30km, in 37:35, but again Wiggins was faster – this time by 54 seconds, in 36:41.

Froome and Wiggins maintained their remarkable pace in the final third of the route. Froome overhauled Sanchez to claim the fastest time but Wiggins, who began three minutes behind his team-mate, soon bettered it, leaving the Spaniard third on the stage.

Wiggins punched the air in delight as he crossed the line, knowing a lifelong goal is set to be achieved in 24 hours' time.

Let's go: Tour de France 2011 winner, Australia's Cadel Evans, gets his race underway

Let's go: Tour de France 2011 winner, Australia's Cadel Evans, gets his race underway

As well as being the display which all but secured the yellow jersey, Wiggins' was a performance which augured well for the Olympic time-trial on August 1, although some of his Hampton Court rivals were absent on Saturday.

Briton David Millar (Garmin-Sharp) completed the course in 1.10:35, Mark Cavendish (Team Sky) in 1.11:11 and Steve Cummings (BMC Racing) in 1.12:04.

Cavendish, who won stages two and 18, will be seeking to complete a stunning Tour for Britain on Sunday's processional stage, usually contested by the sprinters.

A bell tower is adorned with Tour support

Bearer: Peter Sagan of Slovakia, wearing the best sprinter's green jersey

Decorations: A bell tower adorned with mock leaders' jerseys, while Peter Sagan (right) has the green one on

The 27-year-old Manxman has completed the Tour three times and won on the Champs-Elysees on each occasion – in 2009, 2010 and 2011 – and it is likely Wiggins will be seen leading out Cavendish on the French capital's most famous boulevard.

BRADLEY WIGGINS FACTFILE

1980 – Born March 28 in Ghent, Belgium before growing up in London. Son of Australian former racing cyclist Gary Wiggins.
1992 – Begins track cycling at Herne Hill Velodrome, London.
1997 – Wins individual pursuit gold at Junior World Track Championships in Cuba.
2000: March – Silver in team pursuit at Track Cycling World Championships in Manchester.
October – Bronze in team pursuit at Olympic Games in Sydney.
2001: September – Silver in team pursuit at Track Cycling World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium.
2002: July – Silver for England in team pursuit and individual pursuit at Commonwealth Games in Manchester. Gold in individual pursuit at Track Cycling World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.
2003: August – Silver in team pursuit at Track Cycling World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.
September – Wins opening stage of Tour de l'Avenir.
2004: August – Olympic gold in individual pursuit at Athens Olympics. Also wins silver in team pursuit alongside Steve Cummings, Paul Manning and Rob Hayles and bronze in Madison alongside Rob Hayles to become first Briton since 1964 to win
three medals at one Games.

So close: Wiggins is virtually assured of victory

2005: May – Wins stage eight of Tour de l'Avenir.
2006: July – Makes Tour de France debut, riding for French team Cofidis.
2007: March – Wins gold in the individual pursuit and team pursuit at Track Cycling World Championships in Palma, Majorca.
June – Prologue victory in Dauphine Libere.
July – Finishes fourth in Tour de France prologue in London behind Swiss winner Fabian Cancellara but his team, Cofidis, later withdraw after team-mate Cristian Moreni fails a drugs test.
September – Individual pursuit gold at Track Cycling World Championships in Manchester.
2008: January – Wiggins' estranged father, Gary Wiggins, is discovered unconscious in New South Wales and later dies.
March – Wins individual pursuit, team pursuit and Madison gold at Track Cycling World Championships in Manchester.
August 16 – Successfully defends Olympic individual pursuit title with gold at the Laoshan Velodrome.
August 18 – Olympic team pursuit gold alongside Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas and Paul Manning in a world record of three minutes 53.314 seconds.
August 19 – Favourite for Olympic Madison alongside Mark Cavendish but ninth-placed finish results in Manxman suffering the ignominy of being the only member of GB's track team to leave the Laoshan Velodrome without a medal and has a public falling-out with Wiggins.
October – Releases autobiography titled 'In Pursuit of Glory' detailing his struggle with alcohol after Athens Games.

Wiggins leads the way

2009: July – Secures fourth place in Tour de France, matching highest-ever placing by a British rider.
September – Wins British Time-Trial Championship.
October – Wins stage five time-trial and overall title at Jayco Herald Sun Tour in Australia.
December 10 – Signs four-year deal with Team Sky, the BSkyB-backed road team which is being led by British Cycling performance director Dave Brailsford.
2010: February 7 – Makes Team Sky debut at Tour of Qatar, helping squad to victory in the race's opening team time-trial.
March – Finishes third overall in the Tour of Murcia.
May – Wins Giro d'Italia prologue to become second Briton to wear race leader's pink jersey, the maglia rosa. The victory gives Team Sky a Grand Tour stage win at the first attempt.
July – Finishes 24th on Team Sky's Tour de France debut.
2011: March – Finishes third overall in Paris-Nice stage race.
May – Wins fourth stage of Bayern-Rundfahrt as team-mate Geraint Thomas wins overall.
June – Wins traditional Tour de France warm-up Criterium du Dauphine. Wins British Championships road race.
July 8 – Abandons Tour de France after fracturing collarbone in crash on seventh stage. Wiggins was sixth overall, 10 seconds behind race leader Thor Hushovd, entering the stage.
September – Finishes third overall at the Vuelta a Espana, with Team Sky colleague Chris Froome second. Finishes second in World Championships time-trial before helping Cavendish win the road race.
2012: February: Wins stage five of Volta ao Algarve.
March – Wins Paris-Nice overall, completing victory with win on stage eight.
April – Triumphs in Tour de Romandie, winning stages one and five.
June – Successfully defends his Criterium du Dauphine title and wins stage four time-trial for an unprecedented series of results.
July 7 – Takes the Tour de France yellow jersey after stage seven.
July 21 – Wins the time-trial on the Tour's penultimate day to all but secure victory ahead of the final stage, effectively a procession.

Tour de France 2012: Bradley Wiggins must prove he is a worthy winner in time-trial

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Trial of a champion: As the Team Sky machine delivers him to glory, Wiggins must prove why he is a worthy Tour winner

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UPDATED:

22:02 GMT, 20 July 2012

As the peloton dashed across the finish line, Bradley Wiggins climbed on to the podium, shook hands with French President Francois Hollande and collected his 11th yellow jersey of this year’s Tour de France.

Next stop was the Team Sky bus and a warmdown, a luxury he has not been afforded since he assumed the leadership of this race in the Jura mountains. A quick couple of interviews later and he was gone.

Not because he wasn’t in the mood to oblige but because, in spite of a near-certain triumph as the first British winner of the Tour, he still has something to prove. Every Tour champion passes into its legend with a performance of such crushing dominance that no-one can doubt his success.

Leaders: Bradley Wiggins is congratulated by French President Francois Hollande on Friday

Leaders: Bradley Wiggins is congratulated by French President Francois Hollande on Friday

Where it all started: Bradley Wiggins - aged four - with his new BMX

Where it all started: Bradley Wiggins – aged four – with his new BMX

How it stands

1 B Wiggins 83hr 22min 18sec
2 C Froome +2min 05sec
3 V Nibali (It) Liquigas +2:41
4 J van den Broeck (Bel) Lotto +5:53
5 T Van Garderen (US) BMC +8:30
6 C Evans (A) BMC +9:57
7 H Agirre (Sp) RadioShack +10:11
8 P Rolland (F) Europcar +10:17
9 J Brajkovic (Slo) Astana +11:00
10 T Pinot (F) FDJ +11:46.

Wiggins has done so once, in the time trial at Besancon 12 days ago, yet the unpierced armour of the Sky battalion that has surrounded him for the past 2,100 miles as well as his perceived climbing inferiority to team-mate Chris Froome means he has to do so again.

Saturday's 33-mile flat time trial course from Bonneval to Chartres has become Wiggins’s mountain. He will roll down the ramp at the start line with an unswerving ambition — to show that he is the strongest rider in this race and that he deserves due honour.

Friday’s front page of France’s sports paper L’Equipe carried the headline: ‘The Stroll of the English.’ Inside were two more: ‘The plan is the plan’ and ‘One winner, one question.’

The front page was a reference to Sky’s unrelenting control of this race. The inside pages referred to team orders and the instructions passed to Froome on the upper slopes of first La Toussuire and then Peyragudes to wait for Wiggins.

Sky have now won four stages in the 2012 Tour. With Wiggins and, on Sunday, Mark Cavendish on the Parisian avenue he has made his own — the Champs-Elysees — they may end up with six. Wiggins and Froome will finish first and second overall. The logo of the team sponsors and the pale blue stripe on the black team jerseys have become a symbol of robotic efficiency.

Flower power: Wiggins has rarely been troubled while wearing yellow this summer

Flower power: Wiggins has rarely been troubled while wearing yellow this summer

Tour by numbers

45 – bikes used, along with 59 helmets and 176 wheels

9,000 – calories consumed per day by each rider — three times the recommended amount for a normal adult male

2,173 – miles covered by each rider, the equivalent to three times the length of the United Kingdom

19 – different hotels used by the team in France

2kg – in weight lost by each rider on the Tour, as they simply cannot consume as much energy as they are expending getting over the mountains

Rivals are in awe of the precision of the Sky machine and jealous of the annual budget approaching 20million which has been able to attract the supporting cast including Froome, Michael Rogers, Richie Porte and Edvald Boasson Hagen to assure the inevitability of Wiggins’s success. They are also unsure how to prevent an era of British domination in road cycling.

Wiggins is seen as the leader of a team which could not have been beaten this year. The competition is thinner without the unpredictable brilliance of Alberto Contador to jump out of his saddle, on to his pedals and accelerate up the steepest mountains with utter disregard for gradients which defy those who would follow him.

And without the grinding rhythm of Andy Schleck to maintain a tempo which no-one but Contador can support, there has been nothing to disturb Sky’s equilibrium.

What has been absent, however, is excitement over the identity of the yellow jersey wearer. Tour history is filled with tales of derring-do, of riders desperately trying to break their rivals, of epic battles on bikes with altitude starving the brain of oxygen and the legs of strength. It is why Wiggins will not be saluted as the winner of a great Tour de France.

Rock solid: Wiggins has enjoyed superb support from his Team Sky pals

Rock solid: Wiggins has enjoyed superb support from his Team Sky pals

Marc Madiot, the man who gave him his professional road-race contract at the French team Francaise des Jeux and who still manages the team, is a Wiggins admirer, but even he cannot see the 2012 race as one which illuminates the 99-year history of Le Tour.

Madiot said: ‘I have a photo at home of Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor shoulder-to-shoulder on the Puy de Dome, bare-headed, not even glancing at each other. Nowadays, the riders fiddle with their earpieces and ask their computer if they can accelerate or not. Everything is antisepticised, put within parameters, informed by machines.

‘The riders check their heart-rates, their watts and tell themselves they will climb this or that mountain in 40 minutes. Everything is pre-ordained, whereas before it was all about intuition and having a go without knowing whether you would crack or not.

‘It will be great to see an English rider on the podium, especially Bradley, but everything fell into place this year. For him, it was this year or never.’

In the age of the computer Team Sky have become masters of the cycling universe. Their superiority is overwhelming. Wiggins needs to display the old-fashioned virtue of courage without limitations to seize his place in the annals of this great race.

Froome the servant shows he's ready to be a master
Chris Froome

Chris Froome, the man who has inspired and on occasions dragged Bradley Wiggins around France, was a journeyman cyclist before joining Team Sky in 2010.

Born in Kenya and raised in South Africa, Froome, 27, has an English father and grandparents. He represented Kenya in the 2006 World Championships time trial but his early years as a professional road cyclist for the Barloworld team were blighted by a lack of support and injury.

He finished second in last year’s Vuelta a Espana, showing his ability to climb as well as emerging as a time-trialist. It is this magic combination which has marked him out as a contender for this year’s Tour and a potential future winner.

His burst to the line up the lung-bursting climb of the Planche des Belles Filles earned the Stage 7 victory. His ability at altitude means that Froome’s role has been to guide team leader Bradley Wiggins up the final climb of the day in the mountain stages.

As a super-domestique (a luxury servant), Froome has to obey team orders and thus sacrificed his chance of a stage victory on the climbs to La Toussuire and Peyragudes to safeguard Wiggins' position.

Jonny Wilkinson helps Toulon into Challenge Cup final

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Ex-England fly-half Wilkinson shines to send Toulon into Challenge Cup final

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UPDATED:

21:29 GMT, 27 April 2012

Jonny Wilkinson held his nerve after a series of late misses to kick Toulon into the Amlin Challenge Cup final after a thrilling all-French showdown.

The former England fly-half scored 27 points in total to add to Steffon Armitage's first-minute try.

But it was a nervy encounter as Stade Francais led for most of the first half and edged ahead once more on the hour, and Wilkinson needed four attempts to settle the match in his side's favour.

Hero: Jonny Wilkinson of Toulon celebrates with team-mates

Hero: Jonny Wilkinson of Toulon celebrates with team-mates

Toulon took the lead through Armitage's superb score and they almost had another inside four minutes following more good work by the flanker, only for scrum-half Sebastien Tillous-Borde to drop the ball as he tried to offload from a tackle.

But poor tackling let Morgan Turinui through to set up full-back Hugo Bonneval for a converted score in the 12th minute which nudged Stade ahead.

Fly-half Jules Plisson kicked two penalties and a drop goal to extend the visitors' lead to 16-5 but Wilkinson was on target with penalties in the 32nd and 40th minutes, either side of Plisson's third, to leave the half-time score at 19-11 to Stade.

Kicking king: Wilkinson helped Toulon into the Challenge Cup final

Kicking king: Wilkinson helped Toulon into the Challenge Cup final

Wilkinson took his side into the lead with three penalties and a drop goal in the first 15 minutes of the second half but Turinui rounded off a wonderful passing move from the base of a scrum to restore the visitors' advantage, Plisson adding the extras to make it 26-23.

Two Wilkinson penalties countered by a Plisson drop goal left the scores level at 29-29 going into the final 10 minutes – but with Stade winger Julien Arias in the sin-bin for cynically preventing a try after Plisson's kick was charged down.

Wilkinson missed the resulting penalty and then a drop-goal attempt before remarkably putting a 30-metre effort wide from a central position – but he kicked the crucial drop goal from just over 40 metres a minute from time to ensure his side will face Biarritz or Brive in May 18's final.