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Bradley Wiggins wins gold in time trial at Road World Championships Bradley Wiggins wins gold in time trial at Road World Championships
(about 2 hours later)
Sir Bradley Wiggins has won gold in the men’s time trial at the Road World Championships in Spain. The world time trial title has been one of Bradley Wiggins’ targets since 2005, well before he began to contemplate victory in the Tour de France and became a knight of the realm. There has been frustration along the way, but in his last tilt at the title in Ponferrada, north-west Spain, he at last wrestled the monkey from his back, in decisive style, winning by 26sec from the favourite and defending champion, Tony Martin of Germany. If this is indeed his final appearance on the road at a major championship – he will not defend the title or ride the time trial in Rio – it was a fitting swansong.
The Olympic champion clocked 56min 25.52sec for the 47.1km route in Ponferrada to win by an emphatic margin of 26.23sec. This was the only remaining blank in Wiggins’ personal hit-list, and it sits neatly alongside his Olympic gold medal in the discipline, six world track titles in the pursuit and Madison, three Olympic track golds and the Tour. His rainbow jersey came 20 years after Chris Boardman won the inaugural title in Sicily, and David Millar’s disqualification from the title in 2003 makes him only the second Briton to achieve the honour. It also raises – in the background – fresh questions about Sir Dave Brailsford’s controversial decision to leave him out of the Tour de France this year due to the possibility of conflict with Chris Froome.
Germany’s Tony Martin, seeking a fourth straight world title, had to settle for silver in 56:51.75 while Tom Dumoulin of the Netherlands finished in 57:06.16 to take bronze. That question remains moot because of the numbers: Wiggins said after pulling on the rainbow jersey that he had hit his Tour form in order to win in Spain, and he was managing power outputs that resemble those he managed during the 2012 Tour win. On the other hand, he pointed out that his exclusion from the Tour probably helped him win this title, as he ended the season fresh in mind and body after just 36 days of racing, and the work he did on the track before the Commonwealth Games also played its part.
“I want to dedicate this to my family,” Wiggins said, with reference to having been left out of Sky’s Tour de France team in July. “My wife and children were there for me all summer and had to put up with me during July.” An open question is how often that rainbow jersey will be seen in action next season, given that Wiggins seems likely to race up to the Paris-Roubaix one-day Classic for Team Sky, but may switch to a smaller team after that to build to Rio, with a bid at the Hour Record in June along the way. That may well limit his appearances in time trials, particularly if he moves to a third-tier Continental team as has been suggested. “I’d love to win Roubaix,” he confirmed, “[get] up there next year, and off the back of that focus on Hour Record, really invest in that, get the most out of that one attempt, [it will] give me something to do next year.”
It was Britain’s first gold in the event in 20 years, since Chris Boardman won the inaugural edition of the road time trial. As in south-west London in August 2012, as in both the time trial wins that won him the Tour that July, it was a perfectly judged ride, with Martin – Wiggins’s nemesis in 2011 and 2013 – ahead at the first time check, but by only four seconds. Wiggins fought back on the mid-section to lead by two seconds at the second time check before opening up towards the end of the 57 kilometres, when the course used the hilly circuit which will figure in the road races when they start on Friday.
The 2012 Tour de France champion is a multiple world champion on the track but now has his first world title on the road. “I knew the difference would be made on the final loops, it was very tough at the end. I paced it perfectly, I still had gas for the last part. I heard I was ten seconds up on Tony when I hit the climb, but I kept on driving. I didn’t want to have to take any risks on the [final] descent.” He collapsed after crossing the line, having “turned himself inside out”, in the words of his old Australian sparring partner Brad McGee.
Wiggins plans to return to the track for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and vowed this would be his last Road World Championships and he signed off with victory. The quest had begun nine years earlier, and several hundred kilometres to the south, when Wiggins’ seventh place in the Madrid World’s gave an early glimpse of his international potential on the road. In subsequent years, two of the men who finished in front of him, Alexander Vinokourov and Andrey Kashechkin, tested positive for blood doping and a third, Rubén Plaza, was implicated in the Operacion Puerto blood bags scandal. That simultaneously bred an awareness of what he could do on a level playing field and simmering anger that he might be deprived by dopers.
Wiggins was second to Martin in 2011 and 2013, but overturned the German in winning the Olympic title at Hampton Court in 2012. There have been other frustrations, but not in 2011 and 2013 when he took silver medals behind Martin. Wiggins has tended to accept defeat if it comes after he has had what he terms “an open road”, but in 2009, the year of his breakthrough in the Tour de France, he was hotly fancied for a medal in Mendrisio but had mechanical trouble and a slow wheel change on the final lap and bunged his bike off the road in a fit of temper which has become a YouTube classic.
The 34-year-old Londoner was second to Martin at the first time-check, but then moved ahead by two seconds and then by more than nine seconds at the third time-check. Each of the defining Wiggo moments has been greeted with a unique coda, the blend of irony and understatement which is his own, and which makes him both loved and loathed by hardcore fans. In Paris in late July 2012, it was a warning to British fans not to get too drunk on the way home; in London a couple of weeks later, the double V sign on the golden time trial throne. Here, he was asked what had been the first thought on his mind when he woke up on Wednesday morning, and replied that he had needed a pee. The context changes, the quips vary, the end is approaching, but Wiggins marches on.
Wiggins crossed the line well clear of the rest of the field and with Martin the only man remaining on the course and the only man who could beat him.
Wiggins fell on his back on the ground in exhaustion, eventually raising his thumb in celebration when Martin crossed the line and victory was confirmed.
“I paced it perfectly,” Wiggins said. “I still had gas in the final. Even on the last descent, I knew I was ahead, but I was pushing all the way.
“I don’t know what to say. I knew coming into it that I had the legs. Once I saw the course I knew if I was ever going to beat Tony it would be here.”
Boardman won the first time-trial title in 1994, but Britain has had to settle for minor podium places since.
Wiggins has had a challenging year, missing out on Team Sky selection for the Tour de France, which began in Yorkshire, despite having placed an impressive ninth in Paris-Roubaix in April and winning the Tour of California in May.
He refocused for the team pursuit at Glasgow 2014, but England had to settle for silver behind the Australian quartet.
Wiggins has also announced his intention to ride for the Hour Record in 2015. “That’s the next thing now,” he said. “Just to add the world title to the British title and the Olympic title, I’ve got the set.
“Very good. Along with the pursuit world titles it’s fantastic.”