Sir Bradley Wiggins is Great Britain’s most decorated Olympian ever, as his team raced to the gold medal in world-record time in a thrilling men’s team pursuit final Friday.
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It wasn’t until the final 500m that Team GB got the lead, and Britain crossed the line first, in 3:50.265 – another world record and a third successive team pursuit Olympic title.
Wiggins clinched his first medal at an Olympics with bronze in the team pursuit at Sydney 2000 and has maintained a proud record of making the podium at least once in Athens, Beijing, London and now Rio.
Britain’s form in the velodrome is ominous for its rivals. “In some ways I realised what we were going into and that adds nerves to it, these guys (were) bouncing of the ceiling all afternoon in the apartment”.
“This is Elinor’s first Olympic Games, and the gold medal will add to her multiple world titles achieved as both a junior and senior rider”.
The Games’ greatest Olympian was well beaten by Singapore’s first ever gold medalist and even more astonishingly will have to share the silver with two other swimmers.
After the race, he told BBC Sport: “It’s hard not to come off the track and spout a load of cliches but really, the last 12 months we have done everything together”.
Gold in the women’s team sprint went to China who defeated Russian Federation with bronze going to to Germany. I changed expecting four guys and turned down and there were two.
Britain easily set the fastest time in qualifying to earn a favorable draw in the semifinals, then routed New Zealand by more than 5 seconds an eternity over 4,000 meters. “I wouldn’t have come back if there wasn’t the talent”.
“I take myself to Sydney in 2000 and what that meant to me as a 20-year-old kid wandering round there, watching Steve win his fifth gold there and thinking how incredible and wonderful it was”. “We’ve had some big downs and crossing the line, it made every single pedal rev and every training session worthwhile”.
Wiggins never set out to be the sideburns of cycling.
“I put four years of my life towards it”.
The 31-year-old Manxman claimed Wiggins was “super stressed” in the lead-up and had frozen him out of the team pursuit squad.
He wrote on Twitter: “Some reports that I’m refusing to warmup tonight at the velodrome A bit early when I’m racing Sunday!”
Fellow Brit Callum Skinner was first to break the Olympic record, but he held it for just a few minutes before Kenny clocked 9.551 in his flying lap.
Russian Federation were no match in the final and had to settle for silver, while Germany narrowly fended off Australia – including the great Anna Meares – for bronze.
Wiggins largely retired from road cycling after winning the time trial at the London Games, seemingly content not only with his career in professional cycling but also the Olympics.
There is a long day of sprint competition on Saturday, with only the finals taking place on Sunday.
The Australian Matthew Glaetzer nearly topped Skinner by going 9.704 to position himself second.
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Germany, Olympic champion in the discipline in 2012, beat Australia for bronze.
