As reporters loitered in the doorway of Kortrijk’s Hotel Messeyne on Friday afternoon ahead of Sky’s pre-Paris-Roubaix press conference, word filtered through that the main attraction, Bradley Wiggins, was not inclined to come downstairs and speak with them.
The sight of a group of British journalists arguing the toss with a Sky press officer on the pavement outside the hotel would, in its own way, have been a perfectly fitting way for Wiggins to sign off on his final round of media duties with the team, but eventually he filed into a conference room at the rear of the hotel to face questions, wrapped up in a black jacket and woolly hat.
Wiggins’ classics campaign to date has had a decidedly valedictory feel. Ahead of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and again before the Tour of Flanders, he regaled journalists with memories of watching Paris-Roubaix and his early professional experiences. Now 48 hours ahead of The Last Race Ever, however, he made it clear that he was in no mood to cast an eye back over his career just now.
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“I’m just focused on the race. I’m trying not to think about that, it’s becoming quite negative now. I’m not enjoying it,” Wiggins said. “My career finishes on Sunday, not before, so I need to focus on the race and not keep thinking about all the nostalgic parts of it. I’m just focused on trying to get my head in the right frame of mind for the race with no thoughts of afterwards because that makes the job even harder.”
All winter, Wiggins’ preparations for his final crack at Paris-Roubaix have made headlines across Europe and the attention has only intensified following the withdrawal of both Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen through injury. The Englishman took the step of reconnoitring the pavé once a month over the off-season in order to see the Roubaix finale in various conditions, though he stressed that, unlike a time trial or a pursuit, his methodical approach offered no guarantees.
“It’s not as quantifiable, I’ve been saying that all winter that it’s not a given,” Wiggins said. “I was talking to Sep Vanmarcke the other day. He said: ‘If you listen to the press you’ve won it already.’ And I said to him that if it was as easy as that I’d have done it fifteen years ago. You can be in the best possible shape and finish last in Roubaix. It’s really like that. You can have a puncture at the wrong time, a crash, and it’s over.”
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