London 2012 Olympics: ‘Sir Wiggo’ shows common touch as he thanks support

BRADLEY Wiggins yesterday became the first cyclist ever to win the Tour de France and an Olympic gold medal in the same year as he followed his historic success in Paris ten days ago with victory in the time trial at Hampton Court Palace.

He began as the favourite, with a 100 per cent record in long time trials in 2012, and he duly delivered. There was a minor scare at the first time check, after 9km, when he was six seconds down on the world champion, Tony Martin.

But over the remaining 35km, as he tapped out his steady, smooth and deceptively powerful rhythm, Wiggins pulled clear of Martin, from Germany, and his fellow British rider, Chris Froome, who held on to third at the finish. For Froome, the bronze medal meant sharing another podium with Wiggins, ten days after they stood side by side on the Champs-Élysées at the conclusion to the Tour de France, where he was second.

It is extraordinary to contemplate that Froome is arguably in the midst of one of the greatest ever seasons by a British cyclist -- and yet he is being comprehensively overshadowed by Wiggins, who is in the midst of one of the greatest seasons any cyclist, from any country, has ever had.

Having lost last year’s world time trial title by 1 minute and 15 seconds, Wiggins pulled back that deficit and added another 42 seconds for a comfortable winning margin. As he put it, the gold medal “puts the cherry on,” but the cake was already there following an extraordinary year, in which he has won Paris-Nice, the Tour de Romancie, the Critérium du Dauphiné, the Tour de France, and now an Olympic gold medal, his first in a road event with the others all coming in the velodrome.

Despite all that, Wiggins seemed in a state of disbelief after crossing the line. There was no fist pumping as there had been at the end of the second time trial in the Tour, 11 days earlier. He refused to believe he had won, in fact, until Fabian Cancellara, the defending Olympic champion, had finished. Cancellara started behind Wiggins and was the last man on the course, but the shoulder injury he suffered in crashing during Saturday’s road race compromised his effort. The Swiss multiple world champion finished in agony and in an uncharacteristic seventh.

“It’s never over until you finish,” explained Wiggins. “You’re in such a state of concentration, oblivious to everything, doing your own race. I heard time splits but you’re just doing your effort, which just means going from A to B as fast as possible. It only takes one mishap, a puncture or something, to lose it.”

There is talk now of a knighthood 
for Wiggins, but he shrugged dismissively when he was asked if he liked the sound of “Sir Wiggo”. “Doesn’t quite sound right, does it?” he said. “As much as it sounds an honour, I don’t think I’d ever use it. I’d put it in a drawer.”

He had also demonstrated his man-of-the-people credentials at the finish by riding out of the palace grounds to meet some of those who’d lined the roads all day. “I wanted to go and see my wife and all the people who’d come to stand on the roadside and shout. We all know about Olympic ticketing, but the great thing with cycling is that anyone can come and watch it.”

Inside the palace grounds it was ticketed, or “a prawn sandwich fest”, as Wiggins put it. “It was nice to go back outside the gates, because the public weren’t allowed in, but all the real fans are out there. It was a shame they couldn’t see the [medals] ceremony.”

The crowds were even bigger than the Tour, said Wiggins. “The noise was incredible. I’m never going to experience anything like that in my sporting career again.”

Froome echoed that. “I almost expected today to be like another stage of the Tour, where there are lots of people by the side of the road and you cruise past them. But it was something very different from that. It was certainly something I’ll never forget. Literally the roads were lined with people not just cheering but screaming our names. It gives me goosebumps thinking about it. It was really special, and something I’ll never forget.”