robert millarrobert millar

honour .........................................................................................................................................................................................................

palmares | a funny guy | the stolen vuelta | honour | a peiper's tale |the spanish years |
the small yin | setting the record straight | millar on motorbikes | the book |
robert millar colnago c40 review | 1988 winning magazine interview | training | the outsider |
2008 interview | british road champion | the 2011 tour de France

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robert on bradley

bradley wiggins

the following interview was first published in the observer newspaper on sunday 26th july 2009, the very day the tour de france finished on the champs elysees in paris with britain's bradley wiggins in fourth place overall. since this equals robert's fourth place in the 1984 tour, william fotheringham asked robert for his views on wiggins' performance. due to the nature of print publications, robert's answers were slightly edited, presumably due to space restrictions.

happily, thewashingmachinepost has no such space restrictions, so with the permission of both mr millar and mr fotheringham (to whom i am extremely grateful), i reproduce the interview in full.




Before the Tour, would you have thought your British record of 4th place overall would be threatened by Wiggins?

No, not at all. Bradley had been a talented track rider, but the teams he had been with up until now hadn't helped him realise that he might have career on the road too. Maybe he didn't realise that either.

Are you surprised by what he's done? (did you think he had this in him?)

I think everyone is surprised by his rapid progression this year, obviously he has the power to ride fast but the transition to being competitive on the road and and, even more surprising, being good uphill was hard to foresee . His weight loss has certainly helped his climbing so it's apparent he's has been looking at his diet closely, but that'll be only one component he'll have changed. If only it was as simple as losing a bit of weight and training for a bit longer, then that would be great but it's not that easy. I think anyone who can be world pursuit champion can be a decent road rider, they obviously have the power and the focus, so if they can support the new demands required for racing on the road then there's no reason they wont be successful .

What's your assessment of the way he has ridden? Good points, any things he has done that he shouldn't.

From what I've seen, I think he has ridden very well physically and tactically. The good points are that he has kept well positioned most of the time and not wasted too much energy when he hasn't needed too. Bad points: nothing really glaring that I could see, but I'm not watching the race that closely, maybe he could have pretended to be suffering a bit more in the mountains, then the climbers wouldn't have been so concerned by his presence.

What do you think he can do in the future in the Tour? Can he come back and aspire to do better, or is this as good as it gets?

This is hard to predict, as it depends on how he reacts to the training required to improve. Without looking at what he is doing now I couldn't make a judgement on what he could work on, and what he just needs to maintain. At this level it's tiny percentages that are making the differences between the riders, and any improvements require commitment and work beyond the norm. But I don't see any reasons why he should consider this is as good as it gets; everyone can improve.

Do you think he has made a mistake by putting all his eggs in the track basket for so long when, clearly, he could have been up there?

I think everyone has their own goals and what they want to achieve from their sport, so if Bradley has chosen a mainly track-based career until this year, I'd say he can be happy with what he has done there. I've always thought that top pro road racing requires a commitment equivalent to the effort required for an Olympic year, the only difference is you need to reach that level every year, every Grand Tour. Maybe this has been the first year when Bradley has shown that full-on commitment to his road racing, but I think saying that it may have been a mistake to concentrate on the track is wrong, as you have to take into consideration what he wanted to do. It could have maybe been the wrong time for him personally to do something else, or maybe as I said at the start, the team or people he was working with weren't helping enough or asking the right questions.

robert millar

Dave Brailsford reckons a Brit can win the Tour in the next five years. Do you agree?

Maybe. There's no reason why someone British can't be competitive at TdF level. If they can find someone with the talent, the commitment, the attitude and who can support the workload required then it is possible. As a project it is more complicated than just finding someone who can produce the power numbers; the team collective is very important, the set-up has to be right, the race program, the training, the back-up all needs to have experience and understanding of what is required. And then, when all that is in place, you are still racing other people in conditions which are changeable. Many of the countries who have a bigger cycling base than the UK have been waiting for a TdF winner for a long time, but a Brit winning a major Tour isn't a ridiculous idea.
I never thought I was that talented, or that I could always support the workload that well, but I learned and understood what was required to get to Grand Tour level so I think someone a little stronger and/or talented can be better despite being British.

©robert millar & william fotheringham 2009. reproduced with permission. photo of bradley wiggins courtesy garmin slipstream. .........................................................................................................................................................................................................

palmares | a funny guy | the stolen vuelta | honour | a peiper's tale |the spanish years |
the small yin | setting the record straight | millar on motorbikes | the book |
robert millar colnago c40 review | 1988 winning magazine interview | training | the outsider |
2008 interview | british road champion | the 2011 tour de France

.........................................................................................................................................................................................................