You just think about it when it’s over.
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You can hardly blame Sir Bradley Wiggins and his heroic cycling team for celebrating wildly after claiming a historic gold last night in Rio.
Beijing 2008: Gold – individual pursuit; Gold – team pursuit.
Team GB ‘s quartet Ed Clancy, Steven Burke, Owain Doull and Wiggins blitzed round the velodrome to clock a world record time of 3mins 50.265secs to beat Australia to gold.
While the world records from Great Britain, twice, and China headlined the day, there was a sign of what may be to come in the men’s sprint as an Olympic target was also toppled.
That eighth medal was a British record, taking Wiggins past the mark he had shared with fellow track cycling star Chris Hoy.
Cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins became the first Briton to win eight Olympic medals with victory in the team pursuit in a new world record time.
Burke was thrilled with his second team pursuit gold.
Then just a few minutes later, Bryony Page made history for Great Britain as she claimed her country’s first ever medal on the trampoline in a wonderful final routine to stun her competitors in her first ever appearance at an Olympics.
“It’ll be a nice end to my career, back where I was born, back where it started”, he said. “He encouraged me to come back and I probably wouldn’t have come back had it been somebody else in charge 18 months ago”. “The records come naturally if you don’t chase them, just chase the opposition”.
“This whole sexism thing, I’d never, ever seen any sign of that, really”. “Now it’s done, and it’s more relief than anything”.
In an interview on Saturday night with Radio 5 Live, he admitted he “hadn’t slept”, adding: “I am running on fumes”.
“We got annihilated in the Commonwealth Games final two years ago”, he said.
Wiggins was greeted by Hoy and Redgrave immediately after the race in the mixed zone and seemed genuinely taken aback by his latest sensational achievement. But this Olympics was really his last hurrah.
“In some ways I realised what we were going into and that adds nerves to it”. I wanted it to end like this. “It’s brilliant”, he said.
“We started working for this medal four weeks after London 2012”, Welte said.
“This is the best gold medal of them all”, he said.
“If I have to go to the job center tomorrow and get a job, I can say I have this bronze medal.’ And to be 16 years on with five gold medals myself, I never imagined that for one minute”.
I now get to be Olympic champion again – I have been one for 12 years, so I have got used to it.
“We’ve had some big downs and crossing the line”, added Clancy, whose team suffered defeat to New Zealand in the final of the 2015 world championships and Australia previous year.
“This is an historic medal”. “It’s the first time”.
Favourites all the way through the competition, GB were made to work seriously hard for their Gold, and trailed the fast starting Australians for much of the 4000m contest.
We’re assuming “the girls” are the British women’s pursuit cyclists, who themselves won gold in their race yesterday.
Germany, Olympic champion in the discipline in 2012, beat Australia for bronze.
Skinner was the first to hold the Olympic record with a time of 9.703 to send the crowd in the velodrome wild.
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The pair qualified in first and second place, meaning they could meet in Sunday’s final.
