That breaks a tie with retired track cyclist Chris Hoy and gives Wiggins two more medals than retired rower Steve Redgrave, long considered Britain’s golden standard.
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Cavendish is understood to have been handed the opportunity to try to make the team pursuit line-up and left the Tour de France on the second rest day in order to do so. One step at a time, not thinking about the gold.
This time he briefly collapsed into a white folding chair, as the enormity of his and his team-mates’ achievement hit home.
They beat the Australians by less than a second. For pure and undiluted tension, this will take some beating in the days ahead.
Wiggins expressed relief after ending his top-level road career with Team Sky in April 2015 and “the big salary” to be “just a number again”.
In shooting, 18-year-old Amber Hill went out at the semi-final stage of the women’s skeet. You live with it every day. I wanted to go out like this.
He said: “I don’t fancy the next two years. The Olympics is the pinnacle of sport and I’d love to come back and do it again”.
“So to do what Brad’s done and win five is out of this world!”
“I’ve been Olympic champion for 12 years, so I’m quite used to it”.
Ed Clancy told Newsround: “When a kid comes up to you and tells you that you’re the reason they’ve got into cycling, that’s gold that is”. They are so talented at what they do but they don’t get the credit for it because they are not big road stars. “Then you’ve got Owain Doull, nothing fazes him”.
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.
Wiggins had more success at the 2008 Beijing Games, winning gold in the team and individual pursuits, before turning his full attention to the more lucrative and glamorous world of road racing.
Bryony Page won silver, Britain’s first ever trampolining medal while Jazz Carlin became the first multiple medallist of these Games, striking a second swimming silver in the women’s 800m freestyle.
Rio de Janeiro (AFP) – Bradley Wiggins said he will finish his career where it all started after claiming a fifth Olympic title at the Rio Games.
The 2014 Time Trial World Championship was next on his towering list, soon followed by setting a new Hour Record in 2015 and his final triumphant return to the velodrome just yesterday. I said it would take a world record to win an Olympic gold – they were not going to go out and take silver and it was one of the best finals we’ve been in. “I honestly do not know where he came from”.
This is the award-winning athlete’s 8th Olympic medal.
Soon after that the quartet of Alex Gregory, Mohamed Sbihi, Constantine Louloudis and George Nash won their fifth consecutive gold in the men’s coxless fours. I was just saying to myself “thank f*** that’s over”.
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Ainslie won silver in 1996 in the Laser class, before going one better four years later to win his first gold in Sydney.
