The first big climb of the Tour de France on Stage 7 (199 kilometres route from Tomblaine to La Planche) proved to be a spectacular success for Team Sky with Chris Froome taking a blazing win and Bradley Wiggins awarded the yellow jersey after finishing in third place two seconds adrift of his team mate and just a place behind rival Cadel Evans (BMC, on equal time). ‘It wasn’t the plan to go for the stage win, my only concern was keeping Bradley up there’ admitted a delighted Froome.
An even more understandably elated Wiggins added, ‘It sounds corny but this is something I’ve dreamt of since I was a child – sat on the home trainer in Kilburn watching my hero Miguel Indurain do it. Those dreams have come true now and I’m sat here at the top of a mountain in yellow. It’s phenomenal.’ Wiggins becomes only the fifth Briton to win the famous leader’s yellow jersey following in the tyre tracks of Tom Simpson (1962), Sean Yates (1994), David Millar (2000) and Chris Boardman who managed it an impressive three times – 1994, 1997 and 1998.
