The Pain and the Glory: The Official Team Sky Diary of the Giro Campaign and Tour Victory. Chris Froome

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       STAGE 9

      It was another thrilling day of unpredictable action and unsung heroes – and yet more skid-pan corners, as leaden skies dropped relentless waves of heavy rain. While Maxim Belkov of Russia broke clear of a breakaway on the penultimate climb, the Vallombrosa, soloing his way to a 44-second clear victory, the peloton was hyperactive with all sorts of attacks and probing moves. ‘It wasn’t super pleasant out there,’ said Danny Pate. ‘It was fast from the start. A couple of different groups formed and then finally we got the breakaway. It was quite big, and having one guy in there – Juan Manuel Garate, who was only 5 minutes down in the GC – the peloton never let it go out very far.

      ‘The two big climbs in the middle were hard, too. When it was time to bridge the gap we stayed together. Any time you have to do a chase, one of the key things is not to panic. We tried to bring our group back to the main group and we managed it right on the Category-3 climb. We had Rigo and Sergio ahead, and everyone else was behind helping Brad. After he got back on, that was it – I was pretty much blown!’

      All eyes were on Wiggins, who had dropped back on the long series of bends off the same mountain Belkov used as his launch pad to victory. Although his team-mates escorted him at pace for 20km to regain contact with the maglia rosa group, questions were arising about whether the British knight had lost his ‘descending mojo’. The toil required to rejoin the group demanded an enormous effort from Wiggins, too. Although he had his Team Sky colleagues to help, he did much of the work himself, leaving himself empty as he struggled to hold on during the day’s final two climbs, shorter and punchier than those that had preceded them, and looked in peril again on the descent from Fiesole.

      ‘I was riding right behind him,’ said Giovanni Visconti. ‘I could see he was handling the descents very badly. I think when it comes to descents he’s now got some kind of mental block.’ You could dismiss that as a bit of psychological warfare from another team, but Christian Knees made a similar observation: ‘Bradley was a little bit nervous downhill. Bad luck with the weather meant the roads were very slippery. He still had confidence in his climbing skills and his ability. He kept fighting. He was the same Bradley, mentally thinking all the time about how to win, but he was a little bit cautious.’ Two days later, Wiggins, never one to make excuses, reflected on his performance and said: ‘Let’s be honest. I descended like a bit of a girl after the crash . . . Not to disrespect girls, I have one at home. But that’s life and we have to push on and deal with the disappointments.’

      ‘Everyone thinks uphill is the big challenge, but downhill can play a big part,’ said Pate. ‘Uphill, you need a good power-to-weight ratio. Downhill, you need to be a bit crazy. Some descents are over 100 km/h. They’re fun, exhilarating, scary, frightening . . . how you take them all depends on who you are. Some guys have way more confidence than skill and ability. Some guys are out of their minds. People think the sprinters are crazy. Some of the downhill guys are crazy, too. Personally, I’m okay downhill, but if I crash it definitely takes me back a notch. It takes me a while to regain confidence. You can get really shaken up – but some guys don’t get shaken up; a crash doesn’t affect them.

      ‘The Giro is an annual race, but every edition has different stages, routes, climbs and descents,’ he continues. ‘Some descents are fast, some are more technical, with tight turns. It’s СКАЧАТЬ