Tour de France: Bruised Wiggins targets swift comeback

Published on Friday 8 July 2011 15:45

BRADLEY Wiggins has targeted a return to competition by the end of the season after his Tour de France hopes ended when he crashed out on the seventh stage and fractured a collarbone.

A day after Edvald Boasson Hagen secured Team Sky's first Tour victory, team-mate Wiggins, who finished fourth in the 2009 race and had ambitions of becoming the first Briton on the podium in Paris on 24 July, was forced to abandon.

The 31-year-old was caught up in an accident towards the back of the peloton 40 kilometres from the end of yesterday's 218-kilometre stage from Le Mans to Chateauroux, which was won by Mark Cavendish, and was seen sitting in the middle of the road surrounded by his Team Sky colleagues. The race medic consulted Wiggins, who was supporting his left arm, before the Briton underwent further assessment from Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman, who helped him into an awaiting ambulance and off to hospital. Wiggins was sixth overall, ten seconds behind race leader Thor Hushovd of the Garmin-Cervelo team, entering yesterday's stage, with the Massif Central, the Pyrenees and the Alps to come. Wiggins said: "Everyone was jostling for the front. We were constantly told on the radio that we've got to stay in the front. There was a risk it could split at any minute. Everyone was being told that.

"When you have got 200 riders trying to stay at the front on small roads like that it's always going to happen. It's just one of those things. I couldn't get up off the floor for love nor money, and once I did make it to the side of the road I kept saying I wanted to get back on the bike, but there comes a point where you just can't do it.

"I feel top of the world now, I had some fantastic drugs. I feel fabulous."

Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford described Wiggins' loss as "a devastating day for the team" but the rider was philosophical about his misfortune, saying: "That's bike racing. These stages are part of the Tour de France, you try to stay in the front and out of trouble. That is the risk you take as riders. It's unfortunate but life goes on and it's only bike racing at the end of the day.

"I've got fantastic form and it's only a broken collarbone, I'll recover from it and be back for the end of the season I'm sure."