By the end of the year, Cadel’s Tour de France celebrations finally slowed down. It was time to start planning for 2012. Even though Cadel had ticked off his big dream of winning the Tour, he wasn’t going to let any opportunities slide in 2012. Instead he set himself a series of big goals. These were the 2012 London Olympics, the World Championships and, of course, defending his Tour de France title.
Important as these goals were, there was something else big happening in Cadel’s life. Over the European winter, Cadel became a dad for the first time. For a few years Cadel and Chiara had wanted to adopt a baby. After lots of waiting and mountains of paperwork, the adoption finally happened. Their son, a one-year-old Ethiopian boy named Robel, arrived in Stabio in January 2012. Robel had been living in an Ethiopian orphanage after he was found in a cardboard box by the side of the road.
Creating a family life for Robel was a very different challenge for Cadel and Chiara, and it was both satisfying and exciting. Cadel quickly found he was spending all his time either on his bike or with his son.
As the new family was getting settled, Cadel was again under pressure to race the Tour Down Under. Organisers knew it would be brilliant for the profile of the event if Cadel appeared. But Cadel just wasn’t ready to leave his family or to compromise his Tour de France defence.
As in 2011, Cadel and BMC felt he shouldn’t start the season too early. That way he would still be fresh in July. The strategy had paid off the previous year and Cadel didn’t want to change it.
Cadel’s first race of the season was the Challenge Mallorca in early February. This was a five-part series of one-day races on the Spanish island of Mallorca. A few other big names kicked their seasons off there too, including the Schlecks and Alberto Contador. Shortly after racing, Contador learned he’d been banned for two years for doping. He was stripped of his 2010 Tour title too, making Andy Schleck the winner.
Next on Cadel’s schedule were the Spring Classics. First up was the Amstel Gold in the Netherlands. But Cadel was suffering from a sinus infection and found he didn’t have the form to be competitive. With 65 kilometres to go, a disappointed Cadel had to withdraw from the race.
Cadel hoped to recover for Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the Flèche Wallonne. A long period of miserable weather had gripped Belgium and as the races got closer, Cadel wasn’t feeling much better. The wet and cold wasn’t a great environment for someone with an infection. Together with the BMC doctors, Cadel made the decision not to race in either Classic.
Compared to Cadel’s previous season, 2012 wasn’t starting well. The entire BMC team was feeling pressure to bring in a win. BMC had made some other high-profile signings for 2012, including Philippe Gilbert and Thor Hushovd. BMC was rumoured to be the most expensive team in cycling. Yet so far that year the glittering line-up had achieved nothing.
Cadel’s goal was to find form for the Tour de Romandie. As defending champion, he wore the number one bib and badly wanted to win. He was disappointed to find himself still struggling with the infection. He placed 29th, well behind the winner, Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky. While Cadel wasn’t happy with his form, he was glad the slump was happening early in the season. Performing badly in the critical months of June and July would have been much worse.
By June, Cadel’s form was finally beginning to improve. When the Critérium du Dauphiné kicked off, Cadel was looking more like the rider who’d won the Tour the previous year. In Stage 1 Cadel tussled with Bradley Wiggins on a steep, technical descent. Cadel rode aggressively, leading a sprint 500 metres from the finish. With no riders able to match his pace, Cadel took the stage. It felt good to be getting the hard racing practice he’d need for July. Plus, Cadel was happy with the way BMC was working together. So close to the Tour, that was more important than big wins.
The 2012 Tour began with a time trial in Liège, Belgium, on 30 June. As usual for the city hosting a Tour departure, Liège was buzzing. People flocked to the town, kicking back in cafes all dressed up in team gear as they waited for the riders to set off. There was excitement in the air.
As defending champion, Cadel was a favourite. His main rival was Wiggins, whose season so far had been spectacular. Wiggins not only won the Dauphiné, but also Paris–Nice and the Tour de Romandie. He was obviously the rider to beat in the Tour. The news was full of stories about Cadel’s rivalry with Wiggins. Everyone wondered which rider would take control of the race.
From the very beginning it was clear Wiggins was in charge. The UK rider came second in the opening time trial. Cadel was up with the GC contenders but knew his performance was nothing special. Fabian Cancellara took yellow and managed to hold it for the first week.
Cadel’s own performance in the first week was solid and steady. He never fell out of the top ten, but he didn’t do anything remarkable either. He looked forward to the second week, when things would get serious for the GC guys.
Stage 7 was the first real mountain finish. It was a tough day’s racing, with the final climb lasting 6 short but punishingly steep kilometres. Cadel broke away but Team Sky rider Chris Froome went with him. In the last few hundred metres, Froome powered ahead of Cadel to take the stage win. Although he was gutted to lose, Cadel had nothing but praise for Froome’s performance. The 27-yearold had only just had his big Grand Tour breakthrough in the 2011 Vuelta a España. Froome wasn’t experienced, but he clearly had talent.
Even more important than Froome’s performance was how well Wiggins was riding. Wiggins was third in Stage 7, which shot him into yellow. He held the jersey all through the second week, supported by the outstanding Froome. Cadel worked hard and sat in second after the Stage 9 time trial. As the race went on though, Wiggins just kept getting stronger. Cadel found himself losing more and more time to Wiggins and Froome. In Stage 11, Cadel tried to snatch back some time with a risky attack early in the day. Cadel and BMC did manage to break away, but the peloton caught them only 4 kilometres later.
Australian riders Richie Porte and Michael Rogers were both involved in this counterattack against Cadel. That caused a lot of angry tweets from Australian cycling fans. A lot of people couldn’t understand why other Australians would attack Cadel. But even though Porte and Rogers were Australians, they weren’t on Cadel’s team in the Tour. Cadel understood they were only doing their jobs.
On the final climb of the day, Cadel’s pace really dropped off. He told fans on his website that Stage 11 was a very tough day. This showed in his big loss to Wiggins and Froome. Cadel finished in fourth place overall, a worrying three minutes down on Wiggins. With a gap that size, Cadel knew his chances of winning were getting slimmer by the second. But there was still hope and Cadel was going to keep trying.
There was no change to the GC for the next few stages. But there was drama. In Stage 14 a spectator threw tacks onto the road. It was never clear who had thrown the tacks or why. The sabotage led to 30 riders puncturing, including Cadel. In a show of Tour sportsmanship, Wiggins encouraged the riders without punctures to slow down so the others could catch up.
After a rest day, the riders tackled Stage 16. The peloton was in the Pyrenees, where the weather was hot and the climbs were tough. Cadel knew Stage 16 would be a critical day—his big chance to make up time against Wiggins. But that turned out to be impossible. Cadel was struck with a stomach bug and ended up losing 12 minutes. He dropped back twice and had no strength to push his way to the front. He looked on, defeated, as the leaders sped away from him for good.
At the end of the stage, Cadel was in seventh place, more than eight minutes behind Wiggins. Cadel went as hard as he could in every stage after that. He did manage to make up time in the individual time trial, but it was never going to be enough. Cadel’s Tour was over.
After wearing yellow since Stage 7, Bradley Wiggins won the Tour. He was the first UK winner ever. The impressive Chris Froome was second, while Cadel finished seventh. BMC’s Tejay van Garderen beat Cadel, coming in fifth. This immediately led to suggestions that van Garderen might lead BMC in the 2013 Tour. BMC strongly denied this and has publicly stated that Cadel will keep leading BMC at least until his contract expires at the end of 2013.
With the Tour over, Cadel’s next big opportunity was the 2012 London Olympics. The Games started only eight days after the end of the Tour. That didn’t give Cadel much time to recover from the race, let alone from his stomach bug. BMC’s doctors still thought Cadel would be well enough to race in both the time trial and road race events. The doctors even suggested that Cadel’s illness during the Tour might turn out to be a good thing for the Olympics. If he got well enough it could mean Cadel would peak just in time to win a gold medal.
Australia had a strong and experienced squad for the Olympic road race. The team was definitely in with a chance. Team Great Britain was the crowd favourite though. Wiggins, Froome and gun sprinter Mark Cavendish were all tipped for medals.
From the start of the race, Team Great Britain dug in at the front of the peloton. Australian Stuart O’Grady led the first big attack and maintained his position in the leading group. Still, neither the Australians nor Team Great Britain could stop Alexander Vinokourov racing away with the gold. O’Grady finished sixth. With his health still not great, Cadel finished way back in 76th.
There was general upset over Vinokourov’s gold. The Kazakh rider had previously been banned from competition for two years because of doping.
Cadel was exhausted after the Olympic road race and down after a difficult season. Cadel doubted his form would return for the men’s time trial. The race had been one of Australia’s best hopes for a gold medal, but Cadel knew it wasn’t going to happen for him in 2012. So he withdrew from the time trial and ended his Olympics. With no time to enter a substitute rider, Michael Rogers was Australia’s only representative in the time trial. In a repeat of the Tour, Bradley Wiggins won gold in the time trial with Chris Froome coming second.
Cadel’s health problems dragged on into August. Like the previous year, he entered the Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado because the race was important to BMC. He had to withdraw after Stage 6 because of a knee injury.
Cadel hates not finishing races and very rarely fails to finish. On top of the Olympics, Cadel’s result in the Pro Challenge was enough for him to decide to wrap up his season there. Compared with the whirlwind of celebration at the end of 2011, this finish felt very flat. Cadel was ordered by his doctors to rest. Resting isn’t really in his nature, although he did love having more time to spend with Chiara and Robel.
Cadel might have been resting, but the cycling world itself was in chaos. In October 2012, news broke that champion Lance Armstrong would be stripped of his seven Tour titles and all other titles won since 1998. The US Anti-Doping Agency suspected Armstrong had been doping at least since then. The UCI accepted this opinion. Armstrong chose not to defend himself against the claims.
The scandal was massive news all over the world. Lance Armstrong was cycling’s biggest success story, an apparently unbeatable freak of nature. As well as his wins, Armstrong famously beat cancer and went on to set up the high-profile cancer awareness group, Livestrong.
It wasn’t only Armstrong caught up in the drama. Many other cyclists who’d ridden on his teams over the years also admitted doping and had their titles stripped.
Many of Cadel’s contests over the years were looked at in a new light. Cadel was known as one of cycling’s good guys, an honest athlete who got results by working hard. He was one of the main victims of the doping scandal, often losing big races because riders ahead of him were cheating. Cadel is very familiar with the way cycling punishes the body. Riding clean, there are as many failures as successes.
The new heroes of the sport, people like Bradley Wiggins and Cadel himself, were clean. Cadel didn’t become a cyclist for fame and glory but because he loves to ride. All his success has been the result of natural talent combined with total commitment since he was a teenager. Every one of his victories was hard fought and honestly won.
To Cadel, the future of cycling was clear. All the same, when the scandal broke Cadel understood how badly it tarnished the sport. He hoped the fans wouldn’t abandon cycling. He felt the sport’s best years were still to come.
Cadel’s Road Bike Race Highlights, 2012
1st Stage 2, Criterium International
1st General Classification, Criterium International
1st Stage 1, Critérium du Dauphiné, France