Bradley Wiggins took his second gold medal of the championships on Friday when the Great Britain riders scorched to a dominant win over the Ukraine in the team pursuit final. The quartet of Wiggins, Ed Clancy, Paul Manning and Geraint Thomas squad recorded a time of 3’57.468, beating the new national record time they had set this morning and going within 0.878” of the world record currently held by Australia.
“You try to control it for two kilometres but after that you are just racing for the line,” he told Cyclingnews after their podium presentation. “The time is irrelevant to me, I just wanted to win the world title. Once I saw them [the Ukrainian team] in front of us, I knew we had won it so it was just easy then, we were really relaxed. It was only afterwards when we were doing the interviews that I realised what time we had done. It just makes it more special, really, to do that.”
Australia won last year but didn’t figure this time around, placing sixth. They have placed a greater emphasis on youth and long term development this time round. Wiggins said that the Great Britain team were not thinking about who their opponents would be, but instead concentrated on their own performances. “We have just been so focussed on what we need to do, really, it didn’t matter who was in the final.”
GB performance manager Dave Brailsford and team rider Geraint Thomas both said that they felt that the world record was now in reach, but Wiggins was being more cautious.
“The record was set in unusual circumstances, and they will never be repeated again,” he said. “That world record is very tough but we will see. There are two rides now in the team pursuit but when they [Australia] did it, there was four. They did it in a semi final when you had to go past the team to record the time in a final. At the worlds now, if you catch a team you are not going to worry about that.”
After winning the individual pursuit on the opening day of the Games, Wiggins said that his big target was three golds. He is still aiming for that, but says that nothing is granted. “The madison is a lottery, really. We have got the legs to win it but whether we do or not is another thing. There are crashes and all sorts of things. We have got a day off to relax tomorrow and soak it all up, then will get going again for the madison.”
