Wiggins' biggest day

Sunday 22 July 2012

The Kid from Kilburn will ride on to the Champs Elysees this afternoon to make history by becoming the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France.

Bradley Wiggins crosses the finish line yesterday Photograph: Reuters

Custom byline text:

Jeremy Whittle

First to congratulate Bradley Wiggins was triple Olympic gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy, who described Wiggins's now-inevitable Tour victory as "the greatest achievement by any British sportsperson ever".

Speaking after his emphatic win in yesterday's final time trial stage, an overwhelmed Wiggins described Hoy's assessment of his success as "humbling".

"I sent Chris a message and thanked him," the 32-year-old said. "It's quite something coming from him. I realise what I have accomplished but it still takes a while to sink in. As a sportsman the biggest compliment is the respect of your peers, from people like Chris. "I've had messages from a lot of sportsmen, from people that I look up to in sport. It blows you away. I never imagined it would be me, from when I was a kid. It's brilliant."I watched the Tour, from the age of 10, 11, 12, dreaming that one day I would win, but what chance was a kid growing up in central London ever going to have of winning the Tour?" Wiggins said that past disappointments, such as his crash in 2011 and his poor performance in 2010, fuelled his ambition. "I think you need those disappointments to make you a stronger athlete," he said.He described his first Tour with Sky in 2010, when he finished a lacklustre 24th, as a "disastrous Tour, in the way I handled myself. Those things either make you or break you". Recalling his feelings after he broke his collarbone and was forced out of the 2011 race, Wiggins added: "I remember last year sitting watching Cadel [Evans] win the Tour in Grenoble and how happy he looked. That was my motivation. I wanted to feel what he was feeling."Any ongoing debate over Sky's team leadership, fuelled by the supposed rivalry between the Londoner and his Nairobi-born team-mate Chris Froome was ended comprehensively yesterday by Wiggins' win in the 53.5 kilometre final time trial from Bonneval to Chartres. Wiggins finished 1min 16sec ahead of Froome in 1:04.13 to leave him with a 3min 21sec lead. Wiggins and his Sky team-mates – or The Steamroller, as the French press have called them – have controlled the 99th Tour de France from start to finish, setting such a high pace over the near-4000kilometre race route that rivals have been unable to mount a meaningful challenge. But for all the extraordinary nature of his groundbreaking success, Wiggins remains a complex character, whose ultimately tragic relationship with his father Gary, murdered in Australia in 2008, has coloured his development. Even after winning Olympic gold in Athens and Beijing, his undoubted competitive edge still needed direction and maturity. Now, after a tortuous career path, he has found it, and the result has been a success unparalleled in British sport. He said: "The last 10 kilometres I was thinking back to my childhood to my father leaving us when I was a kid, to growing up with mum in the flat. It spurred me on."To those who have followed his career path, there are two Bradleys, the gently-spoken doting father who still takes his kids to the school gate in Wigan and tackles the weekly supermarket shop, and the high-maintenance super-athlete who sometimes takes refuge behind his shades to hide his irritation from the press. Yesterday, the burden lifted from his shoulders, it was a visibly relieved Wiggins who struggled to come to terms with what is an unprecedented success in the Tour's 99-year history. "My wife and children have had to live with me, and bear the brunt because it's not only me who goes through all the criticism," he said. "They're having to live with that on a daily basis – this thing of trying to win the Tour." Wiggins said he kept reminding himself "that it is only sport. It's not life and death. It would be very easy in the Tour to lose that sense of reality".He added: "I've got a lot of other things in my life that mean more to me than this and I'd give it up tomorrow for that. "But in a sporting sense it's my greatest achievement. I've just won the Tour. What else is there bigger than that?Today he will work for team-mate Mark Cavendish as he tries to win his 23rd Tour sprint finish in Paris. But once victory is his there will be little time to celebrate. From Paris, he and his GB team-mates fly to Luton, then start preparing for next Saturday's Olympic road race, and the following week's men's time trial. The crowning glory may yet be to come.

Contextual targeting label:

Block list

Commenting & Moderation

We moderate all comments on HeraldScotland on either a pre-moderated or post-moderated basis. If you're a relatively new user then your comments will be reviewed before publication and if we know you well then your comments will be subject to moderation only if other users or the moderators believe you've broken the rules, which are available here.

Moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours. Please be patient if your posts are not approved instantly.

Wiggins' biggest day

Commenting & Moderation

MOST READ

SPONSORED LINKS

MOST COMMENTED