At least Wiggins may actually be going back to the Tour this July, assuming he finds the form he needs – he believes he will have to be capable of getting on to the podium or near it to earn his place alongside Froome in Sky's squad. That looked remote last June, when he told the Guardian that he was having serious doubts about whether he would ever find the mental strength to make the sacrifices he needed to in order to return to France. That followed a spring of speculation about who would lead Sky.
He explains: "From the moment I won the Tour in 2012 it was always [seen as] inevitable – 'when are you going to start the preparations to defend it next year?'. People would ask that but in my head I'd be thinking, hold on a minute, I've only just come to terms with this one. There came a point where it was fight, flight or freeze, so my initial thoughts were, I don't want to ride next year, I need a year off.
"I was quite vulnerable then," he says of the days after he quit the Giro d'Italia with a knee problem. "There was so much going on. I'd had that injury. I felt quite low. Chris was winning everything. It was such a drastic change from the year before. I'd been knocked off the treadmill – finally. I remember the tone of that interview. It was very much relief. It wasn't giving up, it was more, yeah, OK, maybe I can accept it now.
"But a couple of weeks after that I got my knee sorted, came out to Majorca, started training ... going up all the climbs I'd been doing in training [in 2012]. I realised when I was out here again that I loved training and that I loved the sport. When I watched bits of the Tour [I realised] that I missed it and that I wanted to go back. I'm not done yet."