WONDER BRAD GRABS YELLOW ON HISTORIC DAY
BRITISH cycling shattered a glass ceiling of monumental proportions yesterday as Bradley Wiggins clinched his first-ever Tour de France lead.
He confirmed his status as top favourite for overall victory, while Chris Froome clinched a stage win to round off a perfect day for Team Sky.
For Wiggins, donning the Tour’s yellow jersey following an almost insultingly dominant performance by Sky on the stage’s final, agonisingly steep, climb means the triple Olympic gold medallist is firmly on track towards becoming Britain’s first-ever Tour winner.
The 32-year-old is far from there We’ll try and keep it and we’ll defend it every day as best as possible.”
This time last year Wiggins was lying in a French hospital with a broken collarbone, so the change in his fortunes could not be greater.
“The yellow jersey isn’t something you can play around with,” he said. “If you can grab it, you grab it.
“But I can’t win this alone. The way Sky rode today shows that we’re well on track as a team.”
Wiggins and Froome were the final segments of Sky’s combined effort to take the race by the scruff of its neck yesterday.
Sky’s Bernie Eisel softened up the opposition with a high pace in the final kilometres of flat approach roads, then on the climb mountain experts Michael Rogers, Richie Porte and Froome maintained a ruthlessly high pace that shredded the field far beyond Wiggins’ expectations.
“We didn’t go ballistic. We rode at a hard, controlled pace,” Wiggins said. “I knew if anybody wanted to attack when we were going at that speed they’d have to produce something really special.
“But I was surprised there were only five of us going round that final corner. I thought there’d be maybe 15 at the top. So that’s a good sign.”
Evans conceded: “With a team that strong, they’re going to be really difficult to beat. I’ll just have to see what I can do.”
Wiggins revealed that he had asked Froome to ease back a little, ensuring that his team-mate had enough strength to go for the stage win.
“I told Froome not to go too hard. We knew we weren’t going to get rid of Cadel, so I told him to save himself a bit.”
Froome said: “Evans tried to attack, but we’d been to check out the finish and I knew it kicked up, so I decided to try to get past him. I knew Bradley was fine, so I thought, why not try it?”
Froome’s victory makes him the second British Tour stage winner – after Mark Cavendish last Monday – in less than a week. Wiggins’s lead puts him in a league of his own, and there should be far more to come.