wiggins amok

is surely the best headline associated with bradley wiggins post race outburst yesterday - danish it's true, but pleasing to my eyes.

the last two weeks have been sick time in the swiss household but the happy outcome is that the afternoons have seen me and t crawl out from bed to couch and languish in front of eurosport for the tour. and what a race so far. crashes aside one of the things that has leapt into view is the shattering of the field when the going gets uphill. except that is for sky. now, aside from the fact they've made very plain they've spent who knows how long in tenerife riding up the hill and down the hill in the heat for weeks, it's a performance that's bound to race a few eyebrows particularly in view of say, the whole history of professional cycling!

that said, there's always peter sagan, who's been a revelation (but no surprise) and the inevitable hardness of cadel evans who. it seems, can more or less shed his team in the face of the sky might and still attack. maybe not chris froome tho but, despite wiggins statements to the contrary, had that last wee stretch been longer yesterday it would've been an angliru situation all over again with, possibly, evans the only winner.

than again, maybe that's just me. i've liked cuddles since the tour lion incident but especially since the world championship and he showed that he just won't lie down. wiggins i've just never drawn to, maybe a bit too high maintenance and maybe just too much paul weller identification. plus post vuelta last year there's the notion that froome is, and let's face it a british win is sky's declared aim, maybe a bit too african for them in terms of their tour aspirations (but if the latest gossip is to be believed he'll get a lead role at the vuelta this year)

but i did have some sympathy for wiggins when in the press conference yesterday he gets asked about the sky/us postal 'similarity'. given the dubious quality of previous questioning i think i too would have been less than charitable in my response. but, and most likely moreso than wiggins, working in a profession where it seems it's okay for anyone to make any form of statement, shout any form of abuse, i still don't think i would have called them a shower of fucking wankers no matter how much i would've wanted to.

naturally there's been much blubbing into the journalistic porridge at this 'foul mouthed outburst' as if the use of the demotic amongst uk english speakers is somehow a surprise. and obviously for certain sections of the english speaking community amongst our transatlantic cousins the dropping of the c-bomb at a press conference equates with the end times and the coming of the rapture. me personally, i'm with charlie brooker on the responses of sporting types or for that matter all the indignation generally. it's a bike race, a professional bike race. for money. get over it. oh aye and see that tv. it's got an off button. you could be on your bike....

and, a slight aside on the cycling rant, t did note the number of nurses who, while she was in hospital last week, were prone to the use of familiar language, such as 'dear' or 'love'. i pointed out that this was exactly the sort of thing that the hei was against and obviously, despite the many pressures on the nhs these days, this was one area where we'd be pursuing a robust disciplinary response. t, who found the familiarity deeply comforting, responded in a very anglo-saxon manner. as well she should...!