Free Inside Team Sky by David Walsh

had from Wiggins.
    Then they went their separate ways. Froome got the preferred route to the Tour: Tirreno-Adriatico, Critérium International, Tour de Romandie and Critérium du Dauphiné.
Meanwhile, Wiggins used the Tour of Catalunya and the Tour of Trentin as his principal prep races for the Giro d’Italia. It was an unusual programme, for neither Catalunya nor Trentin had an
individual time trial and his normal route to victory in stage races was blocked.
    Wiggins rode well enough in both but didn’t win. Without victories there was the sense that he wasn’t going as well as he did the previous year. Froome was winning virtually every
race he rode and the 2012 Tour winner wouldn’t have been enthused by the perception that he’d become the secondary man. When Wiggins went to the secondary Tour, the Giro, he announced
that while he would try to win the Italian race his focus was the Tour de France.
    ‘Does this mean you see yourself as the leader [of the Tour team]?’
    ‘That won’t be decided until three days before the race or maybe not until we’re in the race where a natural hierarchy will become clear.’
    Across the cyclo-sphere, the sound that followed was the fluttering of wings as pigeons tried to escape the cat.
    This was the Tour de France champion standing up for himself. Lest you have forgotten, I am the guy who won last year’s race and as the cycling historians in your midst will know, there is
little precedent for last year’s champion to be this year’s
domestique
.
    Twenty-seven years had passed since a defending champion agreed to chaperone his successor to victory.
    Remember what happened then.
    This was 1985-86. Bernard Hinault won the ’85 Tour but victory was tinged with controversy as his young American teammate Greg LeMond felt he had been held back. On a key Pyrenean stage to
Luz Ardiden ski-station, LeMond broke away with the Irish rider Stephen Roche and with Hinault toiling, the American had the chance to forge ahead and show the world what he could do.
    Team manager Paul Koechli saw only the danger, knowing if Roche stayed with LeMond he would take the yellow jersey and jeopardise the team’s chance of winning the race. Deciding to
override LeMond, Koechli ordered him to sit in behind Roche and not contribute to the pacemaking.
    How can you tell a man he mustn’t try his best to win?
    LeMond was American and blessed with a freer spirit than is commonly found in bike racers from the old continent. He argued. Koechli tried to explain it wasn’t in the team’s
interests while LeMond talked about his own interests. In the end the La Vie Clair boss insisted and LeMond eventually slipped in behind his breakaway companion. Roche’s effort petered out
and Hinault stayed in yellow.
    His victory was a record-equalling fifth but the story came with a footnote. He owed LeMond. Not to worry, he said, I will pay the debt next year.
    It is one thing to offer this pledge, another to honour it. Hinault was defending champion and when the 1986 Tour came round, he felt strong. Yes, he was going to help Greg but he wasn’t
going to gift him the Tour de France. His view was that champions of every era had to earn the right to the yellow jersey.
    That year the race began with a prologue in the suburbs of Paris, and Hinault went quicker than LeMond. That got people thinking, most of all Hinault. Maybe he was still stronger than LeMond.
The second X-ray of their form took place at Nantes eight days later, a 62km individual time trial. Again Hinault went faster than his team leader, this time by 49 seconds.
    What’s an old champion to do? Stand aside and let the kid have a victory he didn’t deserve? Pretend he is not interested in becoming the only man in history to win six Tours?
    To have done that would have been to say, ‘I am not a champion. Not a winner. Not a proud Breton. And my name is not Bernard Hinault.’
    Instead, Hinault played the man he was.
    Three days later he got