21 Days to Glory

ROUTE/ Starting in Rouen – which, in pre-Roman days, was the capital of a tribe known as ‘Velocasse’, ancient franglais perhaps for ‘broken bike’ – the route wound north-east through pretty, undulating roads in Normandy then ventured across Picardy to finish in St Quentin. The stage presented sprinters with an appealing dead straight and flat last 25km.

THE CHALLENGE/ The second big day for sprinters. If a breakaway group didn’t achieve a serious buffer of time advantage they would be overrun by the peloton as it blasted into St Quentin.

HOW IT UNFOLDED/ Team Sky bore the previous day’s war wounds – Cavendish with a sore hand and Eisel with stitches above his eye – and they set off in yellow helmets determined to keep at the front as a tight unit.

Matthieu Ladagnous led a breakaway pursued by Jan Ghyselinck, Julien Simon and Pablo Urtasun. The peloton allowed the quartet to build up a lead of more than five minutes before reeling them back in. Team Sky rode in a train on the left-hand side of the peloton during the closing kilometres. It was all about keeping Wiggins near the front and out of bother while giving Cav – on Isle of Man Day – a chance to go for the sprint finish. It looked as though the plan had worked until Tyler Farrar brought several riders down in the bunch with 3km remaining. Team Sky’s riders were unaffected but Sagan was among those taken out.

While the bunch regrouped, Ghyselinck attacked his fellow escapees and was within sight of the finish when Greipel, Goss, Haedo and Cavendish surged past him. If ‘trundling on’ characterised much of this stage, the finish was a thriller. Ghyselinck’s bid for glory nearly paid off, but the sight of the world’s top sprinters giving it everything off the final bend was awesome.

Wiggins remained second overall, seven seconds behind Cancellara. ‘Everyone realises where the safest place to ride is. It was a conscious effort. We’ve got the legs. We’ve got one of the best teams here and Dave B said in the morning to “stop dithering” and we did that,’ Wiggins said. ‘It was nice to hit the front and open up a little bit because you risk “de-training” in the first week. It’s so easy in the peloton. You’re literally doing nothing at times. We knew it was going to be a bunch sprint. Yesterday was a bit messy and mad so we wanted to stay out of that and avoid crashing at this late stage before we get to the hills and this race settles down.’

‘I’ve been a bit caught up in all of the mess the last few days and obviously, thinking about last year and what happened when I crashed, it was a conscious effort [to stay out in front].’

Bradley Wiggins