Bradley Wiggins – The Hero We’ve Been Waiting for

This summer, England’s sporting hopes don’t have to rest on the brittle, heavily-tattooed shoulders of a bunch of prima donna footballers.

Instead, we can look for salvation in the flawlessly shaved legs of a man whose name and unruly sideburns are more reminiscent of the caddish villain of a Victorian crime novel than a three-times Olympic gold medalist.

This is the year Bradley Wiggins is surely destined to become the first Englishman to win the Tour de France and create an historic milestone every bit as significant as the events at Wembley Stadium in 1966.

Let’s face it, the England football team are never going to win anything in an age when Joey Barton remains gainfully employed as a professional footballer. Some may argue a team of vain, self-centred, mentally-challenged, bling-obsessed, dogs-on-heat perfectly represents England as a nation.

But to me and loads of other football fans who can’t afford the sky-high ticket prices charged by clubs these days, Wayne Rooney, Ashley Cole et al might as well be from a parallel universe where status is judged by how many times you’ve cheated on your WAG and the hot topic of conversation is last night’s X-Factor. These monosyllabic monstrosities bear no relation to my life.

Bradley Wiggins, on the other hand, is the hero we’ve been waiting for.

Already an Olympic legend after winning a clutch of medals at Sydney, Athens and Beijing for whizzing around the track at ridiculously high speed on a bike without brakes, he’s now conquering the open road.

He might look like an uncooked stick of spaghetti, but you just know that if he ever found himself on the receiving end of a “challenge” from John Terry, he wouldn’t roll over a dozen times clutching his face as if he’s just been blown up by an IED like Ashley Young. Wiggo would bounce straight back up, get on with the game and be waiting in the shadows outside the changing rooms afterwards. A lifetime of 30 mph crashes wearing nothing but a layer of Lycra makes you that hard. A lifetime of six-hour mountain stages through wind and rain with nothing waiting for you at the end other than a two-hour transfer to your (shared) 2-star hotel room and nearest shower does that to you.

Cyclists, unlike footballers and most other professional sportsmen, are someone us keen amateurs and starry-eyed dreamers can genuinely empathise with. Because it’s a sport as much against the elements as your rivals, all of us can jump on our bikes and grind our way up our nearest mountain for a taste of what the pros go through. When we saw Thomas de Gendt conquer the Stelvio in last month’s Giro, we could all identify with his pain and salute his achievement, even if our local hill climb isn’t quite hors categorie.

Watching Ashley Cole abusing the assistant referee isn’t quite the same.

Wiggo’s as cool as a rock star too. Can you imagine Andy Carroll giving a press conference like this, in which he not only demonstrates his fluidity in a foreign language but also wins a rapturous ovation as he leaves?

That’s why they’ll never bring Superstars back to TV. The chasm between the fitness, toughness and ability to string a sentence together of professional footballers and cyclists would make it too one-sided. (Let’s be honest, next to Wazza even Mark Cavendish would sound like a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.)

So despite being a football fan most of my life, this month’s tournament in Poland and Ukraine fills me largely with indifference. I’ll never forgive Rooney, Terry et al for the shambles of South Africa 2010. I’ll never forgive them for not saying sorry. So I’ll be supporting Spain instead.

But come July, you won’t be able to prize me away from the TV. 1966 is just a tiresome cliché, but 2012 could become the year an Englishman does something every bit as extraordinary as what Moore, Hurst and Peters achieved, and this time without the help of a Russian linesman.

In anticipation of history being made, I’ve already booked a place on the “Ride With Brad” Sportive, to be held in August to raise money for his newly formed charity, The Wiggo Foundation (@WiggoFoundation). The chance to ride alongside the first ever English winner of the Tour de France was too great to resist.

My only worry is that, after winning the Tour, he might be in no condition to take part.  In his autobiography, he confesses how, after winning gold at the Athens Olympics in 2004, he went on a six-month bender during which he spent more time in his local then on his bike.

Mind you, at least then I might have a chance to keep up with him.

Photo via Petit Brun

1. Ian Sharpe:

   August 2, 2012 at 20:59

   The quote of this article "Let’s face it, the England football team are never going to win anything in an age when Joey Barton remains gainfully employed as a professional footballer. Some may argue a team of vain, self-centred, mentally-challenged, bling-obsessed, dogs-on-heat perfectly represents England as a nation."