There are not many statements you can make with absolute certainty, but one such this morning is that Sir Bradley Wiggins is not a happy man.
Wiggins’s main appeal lay in his ability to collect gold medals – three in the Athens Olympics, two in the Beijing Olympics, and then there was that little matter of winning the Tour de France. But as well as a cast-iron backside he had charm in abundance: he talked like an ordinary guy, he had interesting sideburns, he looked and sounded real. He was that phenomenon we’ve seen so often, a golden British boy.
I’m not sure if Sir Bradley had thought about his post-cycling career, but I do hope it wasn’t acting. Because when Andrew Marr quizzed him over the weekend about injections of triamcinolone, a powerful corticosteroid, shortly before completing in 2013, and about what was going on in the building-up to his 2012 Tour triumph, Sir Bradley reacted like Billy Bunter protesting he hadn’t eaten that cake. Wiggins stammered, found it hard to make eye-contact, looked very very nervous.
Of course it’s unfair to judge a man or woman by their outward appearance. Frankly I found Bill Clinton quite convincing when he eyeballed the camera and told the American people “I did not have sexual relations with that young woman”. In the run-up to the Trump-Clinton debate this week, television has shown clips from that famous Kennedy-Nixon TV debate, where Kennedy looked sincere and charming whereas Nixon looked evasive and very sweaty. Those who heard the Kennedy-Nixon debate on radio were convinced Nixon had won, those who saw it on TV believed JFK had come out on top.
Wiggins didn’t sweat but he looked more than uncomfortable as he tried to reconcile statements in his autobiography with statements made since. But don’t we all feel uneasy, even when as innocent as the whitest lamb? When I go through customs, even though I have decided not to smuggle a tanker-load of diesel this time, I invariably feel and probably look shifty. Don’t ask me to explain it. Maybe I’m mad. And maybe Bradley Wiggins is speaking the truth, despite, as I say, his written account of the lead-up to major races and his verbal account since. In his autobiography he claims not to have used injections before races, it now emerges he did use injections before races.
The British media, who were fawning and drooling over Sir Bradley at the time of his successes, are now bringing in the wrecking ball to smash that which they have constructed. It all sells papers.
Is Wiggins guilty? I don’t know and we shouldn’t presume anything in advance. But if it is proved that he injected, as one of the commenters on this blogsite said, he’ll hardly be the first knight of the realm to be engaged in jiggery-pokery.
“Is it about a bicycle?”
You are correct Jude, the media are bringing the wrecking ball down on him, there does however seem to be a deliberate attempt to portray Sir Wiggins as the villain who acted alone, rather than the villain who was part of the orchestrated plan to ensure Team Sky got their TdF triumph. I would love to see the same wrecking ball being aimed at Mo ‘my doorbell is broken’ and Lizzie ‘oops I forgot to update my whereabouts’ Amistead.
Anyone involved or partly knowledgeable about cycling teams knows that there is a network of people within the team and on the periphery needed to ensure that all ‘criteria’ to obtain a TUE is met. Wiggins stated that he had to be assessed by three doctors before his TUE application was submitted. Did this happen without the team director knowing? The doctors are either complicate or incompetent. I will leave that for others to decide.
And don’t expect his knighthood to be stripped, last time I checked, Linford Christie was still an OBE for his contribution to athletics.
slight correction *Farah and Armistead
It’s not just Sir Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky, Esteemed Blogmeister, whose reputation has developed a buckle, a bhuachaill.
The prestige of the distinguished, erm, spokeseman for Team Sky, David Walsh, has also run into some nails along the road. . Goddess alone knows where this rough road of cobble-causing wobbles will lead, but, at this time of trial and terrible time trials, going forward, the outlook is bleak.
Buckingham Palace, alas, is beginning to look less and less likely as the destination of rejoice.
Any one interested in the art and craft of demolition jobs, involving ball and bicycle chain, might well do worse than lend an ear to Paul Kimmage on the ‘Off the Ball’ Show on Newstalk fm yesterday at High Noon for his review of the Sporting Press.
Now, to put this in context and to tell exactly where this upcoming sporting spat was at:
If Kelly and Roche were the Two Big Wheels of the Irish cycling world, then Kimmage and Walsh were ditto in the world of Irish Cycling Journalism. At least up to and including yesterday, that is.
Back in the era when it was neither erm, profitable or popular this pair of prophets before people , Kimmage and Walsh, were out with their binoculars where the Lombardy Poplars shade the shady riders of the Giro d’Italia.
Even though they knew full well it would turn the lycra-clad Narco dopes even narkeir, they courageously continued to pump up the volume of criticism in a headstrong way which had the collateral result of strengthening their hands and arms, both morally and physically.
Both Kimmage and Walsh (KAW) gained global fame and plaudits for their more than glancing blows at Lance Armstrong. Or, if one prefers, Walsh and Kimmage went on the WAK attack against those miscrants who would ‘defile the spirit of sport’.
This particular Communications Crow will no longer, erm, KAW.
Sadly, on this question of Sir Bradley, and with Sunday Morning coming, in its own inevitable way, Paul Kimmage also came down with this feisty lament:
-My relationship with David Walsh is dead, it’s over, it’s finshed.
Even Angelina J. in her most high-whinnying neigh, could not say it to more ricochet effect.
Why, oh, why ? Well, one may ask.
Seems like Sir Bradley Wiggins (now that Armstrong had been, erm, first named from the sport) was on a kind of Buggins Turn around.
And had some meds injected, in countries bordering the Mediterannean, which were marked TUEs.
Less, Tuesday child is fair of face, however, in the eyes of the low-key Kimmage and more, much more :
-Et TUEs, David.
For, according to former pal Paul, David Walsh, Chief Sports Writer of The Sunday Times having been invited by Team Sky some years back for to do a job of inside investigation, seemingly came up with no hint of Therapeutic Use Exemption (for that that’s what TUEs is !).
And so, PC D. Walsh was seen to write the equiv of:
-Nothing to see here, move along there, please.
To assert that a needled Kimmage came across as one who had been injected in the back with a pharmaceutical n word , is to nail it in one, leading to Thunderer Clap 2:
-Et TUEs, David.
Now, as it happens, The Perkin of late had developed an interest in the writings of David Walsh, an interest which was but of a nodding-froM- a-distance variety before this.
Normally, one does not, erm, take The Sunday Times. This is down to one’s increasingly dicey immune system, Ricey.
As one understands it its award winning War Correspondent , Field Marshal K. Myers,K.C., G.C. B, D.S.O., V.C.., is still sending up to the minute dispatches back from the mud and the blood of the Somme, his OTT outrage matched only by his Over the Top rouge.
Thus, one was wary of putting one’s foot in the mire of more heroic than thouery, observing the sons of Leinster being frog marched towards the Huns of Munster. With the clear and present danger of contracting (gulp) trench foot.
On a recent post-Brexit, pact-finding skite through the periphery of what remains of Europe, however, The Perkin’s inner news Narco, finding himself at a loose end and empty handed in some remote Ryanaired airport , broke a vow of some solemnity and (gasp) purchased The Sunday Times.
Attracted, not least, by the front page headline:
-Our Glorious Golden Games.
One almost fell out of one’s business class seat and spilled one’s fluted glass of U-Ryanair champers to discover that the Olympian title had been borrowed from an inside report which was (gasp) bylined:
-David Walsh.
Hmmm.
Now, the scandalously under-appreciated DW, despite having been a functioning journalist for nigh on 35 years has thus far been only awarded The Irish Sportswirter of the Year Award on a paltry four occasions, followed by a British Sportswriter of the Year Award on a derisory three occasions.
The question which is squeezing The Perkin’s already presurised middle most acutely now, going forward, is:
Will Sir David Walsh, not, have to be content with walking backwards for Chrimbo rather than backwards from (gulp) the Nonagenarian Bimbo?
Not only, alas, more Spike Milligan but more Bike Ill-again.
CRAVEN HARD CHAWS TO CHEW THEIR WORDS ?
Or,
FAREWELL, THEN, THE GREAT BRITISH, erm, BIKE OFF.
David Walsh has the graven image of a saint
So brave and good mere mud cannot taint
But this scrimmage
With Paul Kimmage
Says ‘Mother T. in a Maillot Jaune he ain’t !’
Of gems, Perkin, ten thousands see I at a glance, but let me pluck this yellow beauty from the treasure house: “As one understands it its award winning War Correspondent , Field Marshal K. Myers,K.C., G.C. B, D.S.O., V.C.., is still sending up to the minute dispatches back from the mud and the blood of the Somme, his OTT outrage matched only by his Over the Top rouge.” Jeez, Perkin, HOW DO YOU DO IT (going forward)???
Remiss of him, Jude, to ignore Kevin’s most esteemed FUII award, most deserved!
THE SPIVS WHO CONTINUE TO GIVE
If by the Liffey , EB, Paddy the Caddy
Stoops low to set it smack on the tee
Right down the middle
Or, the hey diddle diddle
This laddie can but whack it like maddy.
Tells are insufficient for conviction in court of law, but they are certainly valid data points to utilise in making your own (caveated) opinion.
There is the issue in lie detectors where innocent people behave guilty and throw off false positives. The same problem lies in tells.
But it doesn’t look for Wiggins. And it’s terrible for cycling, they were just getting over the 00s scandals.
Why all the focus on Wiggins?
Has nobody heard of Chris Froome, also of Team Sky, and also a TUE user?
Or maybe Team Sky specialise in employing very unhealthy cyclists.
In one of the most difficult stages of this year’s Tour de France with a severe mountain top finish, the leading group was down to about 10 cyclists: Froome and four of his team mates, along with the other five best mountain climbers in the world, but none with any team support.
Sky were in a class of their own, each man in the last 15k sacrificing himself for Froome, to guarantee him his stage win, which would ensure his eventual overall victory.
Are the Sky riders so superior to every other team in world cycling, or are they all asthmatics, who get their TUE treatment which wreaks this magic ability in them?
They may have received medical authority for wholesale use of otherwise banned substances, but if they are, to me it is still cheating, and anyone who wins the Maillot Jaune or an Olympic medal while using them should be disqualified and forced to hand back their trophies!
To summarise then: you, OF COURSE, wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions about someone cheating in a push bike race, but you do think he looked shifty, his story didn’t quite add up and it looked to you like he was lying through his teeth.
Funny – I think Gerry Adams looks like that when talking about murder, covering up for rapists and not being in the IRA, but of course, I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions whether its a man on his bike being accused of cheating or a TD being accused involvement in murder.
I am off to introduce my ethnically diverse pots and kettles to one another.