Team Sky's Bradley Wiggins seals overall victory at the 2012 Tour de France with a win in the penultimate stage time trial(Image credit: AFP)
The winner Bradley Wiggins of GB - UK Sport Innovation bike with custom bar setup (as used on his Pinarello Graal at the Tour de France), taped over SRM power meter, adidas shoe covers and skinsuit, surprisingly conventional exposed Dura Ace brakes, Wiggo roundel on his UK Sport helmet and head badge, two energy gels up his shorts and a HED front wheel - all in all, very tidy(Image credit: Robin Wilmott)
Tony Martin, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome(Image credit: Daniel Simms)
As widely expected, Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky manager Dave Brailsford have been awarded knighthoods for their services to British sport in the annual New Year Honours list.
Paralympian Sarah Storey, who won four gold medals in road race events in London, has also been named as a Dame, as British sport celebrated its success at the 2012 London Olympics with 78 different titles awarded to athletes and staff.
The New Year Honours are chosen by a special committee and confirmed by the Queen. All the award winner will be given their titles at a special ceremony at Buckingham Palace in the next few months.
“It’s an incredible honour and an incredible thing to have,” he said. “[Sir] is not something I would like to use in daily life because it would still sit uneasy with me. The only thing I have insisted on is that my wife and children call me Sir at home but other than that everyone is free to call me Bradley!"
“The goal this year was to win the Tour de France and the Olympic Games and we did that. I think it’s everything else that has happened since then, which have not been the biggest achievements but the most rewarding - things like Sports Personality and the Knighthood - because those things are out of your hands. So to be awarded those is humbling.”
Brailsford's hard work rewarded
Dave Brailsford has masterminded success at Team Sky and with the Great Britain cycling teams on the track and the road in recent years. He was laughed at when he set winning the Tour de France with a British rider within five years but achieved the goal with Wiggins after just three years. He wanted to share his title with his staff and riders.
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“On the one hand you feel proud and honoured but on the other it feels quite humbling," Brailsford said on the Team Sky website after his knighthood was confirmed.
"I think more than anything else it’s recognition for everything that has happened in cycling, not just for this year, but over a period of time and the development of the sport. I’m the lucky one that gets recognised."
“I’m just an orchestra conductor and I am only ever going to be as good as the people playing the instruments by making sure they are all coordinated. I am very reliant on being able to recruit and develop the best people in given areas and I think I have been very lucky in having some absolutely brilliant people who have worked with me. But more than anything it’s bike riders that win races and gold medals and I have been incredibly lucky to have such a talented bunch of riders come through the system in the last few years and I think they are the ones that deserve the credit."
