Day five began with one man down, but Wiggins still safely tucked seven seconds behind Cancellara in the overall standings. The long, flattish road to Rouen had a Cavendish victory written all over it in the morning, but by mid-afternoon the sight of a tarmac-stunned figure in a torn, grubby rainbow jersey told a different tale. Cavendish had been gunning for a 22nd Tour stage victory, but at 2.7 kilometres from the finish he and Eisel were brought down hard in a mass pile-up. Both got back on their bikes and crossed the line, but the world champion was left to rue a missed opportunity, exacerbated by having to watch former team mate André Greipel – who took the honours by a bike length – do the victorious media rounds.
You could see anger and stunned disappointment in Cavendish’s body language, while Bernie seemed disorientated. ‘They’re not happy. There was a fair bit of bad language because it was a chance missed at a win,’ reported Yates.
‘I definitely remember the crash. I was the first rider down. I hadn’t gone down in a bunch sprint for five or six years, and I know why – it really hurts!’ Eisel recalled. ‘We were going 70km per hour, downhill, I was under Greipel’s wheels and we were being swamped from behind and … no one was to blame. There were just too many sprinters in the same place at the same time. Suddenly I was just a passenger on my bike. I remember hitting the deck and rolling and being hit and kicked from behind, praying, “Please let it stop”. Then I felt a warm liquid on my face and realised that was blood. I took my helmet off and thought it couldn’t be that bad because I didn’t have a headache. Cav was straight there, screaming at me, but everybody was ok. Just skin off…
‘We had to take more risks than usual, but we knew that. I was in my usual role for Cav, but it was more complicated in this race because there were two aspects to my job: I was there to support Brad and the boys because our goal was the yellow jersey and I was thinking of where I had to deliver Cav. I’d work at the front, and then go back to Cav, giving him my all in the lead out, keeping him out of trouble. Beforehand I thought I could do more for Cav, but it was really impossible. We were both new to Team Sky in 2012 and when we met up in Liège for the Tour after a successful summer, the expectation was high. For me, the biggest thing I could ever achieve in my sport was to help win the yellow jersey. I remember sitting there, just me and Cav, saying, “Ok, a new world!”’
Christian Knees was probably more relieved than anyone to know his team leader had safely made it to the end of another day without losing time to his GC rivals. At 1.94m tall and 81kg in weight to Wiggins’s 1.90m and 69kg, the German is the perfect protective shield. ‘When I was a junior, someone said to me after a race, “Behind you, I got the slipstream of a truck!”’ joked Knees. ‘My role was to stay with Brad, hold him out of trouble and ride in front to protect him from the wind. It’s all about saving energy for Brad. I don’t care about my energy or where I finish.’
Yates had identified Knees as the ideal right-hand man for Wiggins. ‘In order to turn the time trials into killer blows, we needed to help Bradley save as much energy as possible,’ he said. ‘It was glaringly obvious Knees had to come. I pushed for it from day one. He knows what his job is and he gets on with it. After Kosta was out, he stepped up and had to ride in the easy mountains too. His job was to kill the lesser troops, mind the cause, gauge the feelings, look ahead to anticipate any circumstance that could arise, and he did it in the most efficient manner day in, day out.’
Knees relishes his role: ‘I had my chance to go for my own results in the past. I accept that I am a good rider, but not a Top 10 or a Classic winner. As a domestique, I am one of the very best and that is my motivation. It’s a team sport and if you have someone in your team like Bradley who is able to win, it makes everything – from training hard to racing – so special.’
For a bruised and battered Cavendish and Eisel, the end-of-day business of showering and changing was painful. Oblivious to the milling fans outside, the ‘office’ area at the back of the bus became a temporary operating theatre. ‘The stitching above the eye was the smallest thing,’ says Eisel. ‘The shoulder and elbow were worse. I hurt for five or six days. For the first four days I couldn’t raise my arm. Every morning you wake up, your muscles are cold, and it hurts so much. I’d look at the bruises on my hip and think … oh why did I crash? But it’s the Tour. You keep going. I’ve been in cycling for 12 years, I was telling the others, trust me, after three weeks of this intensity, you won’t even remember which year you crashed – this year, last year … Crashing is one thing, but water is the worst. Taking a shower with raw skin … You really don’t want to go in there. The first 30 seconds are agony.’
Christian Knees. Wiggins’s right-hand man. Age: 31. Nationality: German. Career highlights (as of eve of 2012 Tour de France): German road race champion (2010).
