first time.
Objective 2 has been a qualified success, with a display of team unity and brotherhood delivering Mark Cavendish to the finishing kick in fine position, but the Manx rider was unable to convert
the approach with a victory. Tomorrow will be the last chance for sprinters to shine for a little while. We can expect him to be keen to show Greipel who is the boss.
MATT ILLINGWORTH WAS A bloody good bike rider. A talented time triallist from Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex (‘Don’t put Southend’), the
tall cyclist was in great demand for teams on the British road circuit as the powerful horse who could drag races back together for faster-finishing teammates.
He rode for such teams as GS Strada, Kodak, Brite and Linda McCartney in a ten-year career upon the roads of Great Britain and the tracks of the world. He won two medals on the velodrome at the
Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur and that’s where he first got to know Bradley Wiggins properly.
‘I’d seen the skinny kid at a few races and I knew he was pretty good. His legs looked too long for his body. The longer socks were starting to get fashionable then – George
Hincapie was wearing them – and there was a big debate about whether they were cool or not. They were made for Brad. He wore them so long you could have easily got shin pads in them, as was
pointed out more than once in the bunch.’
Wiggins was drafted into Illingworth’s England team pursuit squad for the Commonwealth Games. He made an immediate impression on the older rider, one that developed into a friendship that
endures today, despite Illingworth emigrating to Australia in the early part of this century.
‘The thing I remember most about Kuala Lumpur was Brad wiping his arse on a bit of paper and shoving it down the back of the fridge at the place we were staying at. After a week the smell
was atrocious. Colin Sturgess eventually found it, pulled it out and went mental. “Who the fuck would be such a dirty bastard?” he was screaming. This weedy eighteen-year old, who had
hardly said a word the whole trip, just looked at Sturge completely deadpan and went: ‘It was Illingworth.’ Thanks to his almost monkish silence up to that point, they believed him,
too. I liked him a lot.’
Being cool was always as important as being good for Brad, even in those days.
‘We were going for training rides in Malaysia, and it was, like, I don’t know, 40 degrees or something and 98% humidity. Mental. We were ripping the arms off our training kit and
rolling up our shorts like Yates, blaming it on being too hot but really just trying to get a nice tan to take home to England. Brad would be there in legwarmers. ‘Pros never train in
shorts,’ he said. He’d been watching old Tour de France videos and seeing Delgado and Indurain riding mountain time trial preps in thermal jackets and tights in July. You could see him
thinking, “I want to be them.” And now he is, really.’
Matt would be the first to admit that the general approach to racing was a bit less serious than nowadays, and he was one of the last of the old guard who could party hard and still race the
next day. For a while Brad was happy to join their ranks.
‘We were up in Edinburgh for a track meet as part of our World Championships preparation one year. The old outdoor track at Meadowbank was pretty grim at the best of times, and the weather
forecast for the following day was appalling. Convincing ourselves in the nice warm and dry hotel that the card for tomorrow was bound to be rained off, we went on a massive bender. The next day,
we woke up mid-morning with horrific hangovers and pulled back the curtains to piercing blue skies and searing sunshine. That was the worst day’s racing I’ve ever got through, but we
got through it.
‘A bunch of us went out to watch the Ghent Six when Brad and Rob Hayles were riding, supposedly to support them. We must have embarrassed them horribly, hurling abuse at them
Objective 2 has been a qualified success, with a display of team unity and brotherhood delivering Mark Cavendish to the finishing kick in fine position, but the Manx rider was unable to convert
the approach with a victory. Tomorrow will be the last chance for sprinters to shine for a little while. We can expect him to be keen to show Greipel who is the boss.
MATT ILLINGWORTH WAS A bloody good bike rider. A talented time triallist from Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex (‘Don’t put Southend’), the
tall cyclist was in great demand for teams on the British road circuit as the powerful horse who could drag races back together for faster-finishing teammates.
He rode for such teams as GS Strada, Kodak, Brite and Linda McCartney in a ten-year career upon the roads of Great Britain and the tracks of the world. He won two medals on the velodrome at the
Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur and that’s where he first got to know Bradley Wiggins properly.
‘I’d seen the skinny kid at a few races and I knew he was pretty good. His legs looked too long for his body. The longer socks were starting to get fashionable then – George
Hincapie was wearing them – and there was a big debate about whether they were cool or not. They were made for Brad. He wore them so long you could have easily got shin pads in them, as was
pointed out more than once in the bunch.’
Wiggins was drafted into Illingworth’s England team pursuit squad for the Commonwealth Games. He made an immediate impression on the older rider, one that developed into a friendship that
endures today, despite Illingworth emigrating to Australia in the early part of this century.
‘The thing I remember most about Kuala Lumpur was Brad wiping his arse on a bit of paper and shoving it down the back of the fridge at the place we were staying at. After a week the smell
was atrocious. Colin Sturgess eventually found it, pulled it out and went mental. “Who the fuck would be such a dirty bastard?” he was screaming. This weedy eighteen-year old, who had
hardly said a word the whole trip, just looked at Sturge completely deadpan and went: ‘It was Illingworth.’ Thanks to his almost monkish silence up to that point, they believed him,
too. I liked him a lot.’
Being cool was always as important as being good for Brad, even in those days.
‘We were going for training rides in Malaysia, and it was, like, I don’t know, 40 degrees or something and 98% humidity. Mental. We were ripping the arms off our training kit and
rolling up our shorts like Yates, blaming it on being too hot but really just trying to get a nice tan to take home to England. Brad would be there in legwarmers. ‘Pros never train in
shorts,’ he said. He’d been watching old Tour de France videos and seeing Delgado and Indurain riding mountain time trial preps in thermal jackets and tights in July. You could see him
thinking, “I want to be them.” And now he is, really.’
Matt would be the first to admit that the general approach to racing was a bit less serious than nowadays, and he was one of the last of the old guard who could party hard and still race the
next day. For a while Brad was happy to join their ranks.
‘We were up in Edinburgh for a track meet as part of our World Championships preparation one year. The old outdoor track at Meadowbank was pretty grim at the best of times, and the weather
forecast for the following day was appalling. Convincing ourselves in the nice warm and dry hotel that the card for tomorrow was bound to be rained off, we went on a massive bender. The next day,
we woke up mid-morning with horrific hangovers and pulled back the curtains to piercing blue skies and searing sunshine. That was the worst day’s racing I’ve ever got through, but we
got through it.
‘A bunch of us went out to watch the Ghent Six when Brad and Rob Hayles were riding, supposedly to support them. We must have embarrassed them horribly, hurling abuse at them
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