BRADLEY WIGGINS was promising to celebrate long into the Athenian night after he entered Olympic history yesterday in the most dramatic fashion, snatching a bronze medal at the last moment of a thrilling madison race to join Mary Rand as the most successful British Olympian in a single Games since they were staged in London in 1908. Wiggins, who in six frenetic days of cycling took gold, silver and bronze medals in different disciplines in the Olympic velodrome, was left almost speechless.
Sporting the bemused expression that he has worn since winning the men’s individual pursuit gold on Saturday, the West Londoner and Rob Hayles, his madison team-mate, embraced on the podium as Wiggins picked up his third Olympic medal in five days. “It’s become a bit of a cliché, but these kind of things happen to other people,” Wiggins said. “I never ever thought that anything like this would happen. I always wanted it, but when it happens it’s hard to take in.”
Yesterday’s triumph came after all had seemed lost in the frenzied 50-kilometre event when, in a bizarre replay of the 2000 Sydney Olympic final, Hayles fell with a resounding thud to the trackside after 108 of the 200 laps. But despite cuts to his elbows and thighs and bruising to his shoulders, he was quickly to his feet. “I just thought, ‘Oh no — not again’, ” Hayles said. “But everybody from the team was yelling at me to get up and get going again and I knew I had to carry on.”
Hayles was soon back in the thick of a high-paced race and Wiggins cruised clear to take back a lap from the leaders, Australia. “When I saw him crash it looked to be over,” Wiggins said. “He looked quite bad and then when he got back up and a few teams had taken a lap, I thought that was it. But then the adrenalin started flowing and I got half a lap back and felt good. But it’s all in a night’s work when you’re used to six-day racing in the winter.”
Wiggins’s effort put Britain briefly into the silver medal position, but Switzerland pushed them into third place, with Stuart O’Grady and Graeme Brown, the flying Australia pair, cruising to an emphatic win. But it was Wiggins, whose last-ditch attack sealed his place in Olympic history, who was the star of the show.
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“I’ve been such a fan of sport as a whole over the years,” he said. “I’ve watched the Olympics passionately and I think that’s one of the reasons why it feels weird, because I do realise what I’ve achieved. It’s not as if I have come into the sport not really appreciating it. I do know what I have done here. That’s why it feels strange.”
Fears that the 24-year-old would struggle to motivate himself for one final hurrah proved unfounded. “Winning the pursuit was incredible,” he said of his first medal victory, “and the team pursuit (when he won silver) was hard too. But then we had a day off yesterday. We spent a bit of time away from the Olympic village, had a beer, and that did me more good than bad. I came here tonight and I felt fresh again and really motivated to race.”
The special ambience of velodrome racing has long been in Wiggins’s blood. He was born in Ghent to a cycling family, not far from the famous old track that is one of the Belgian city’s best-known landmarks. His father, Gary, was a little-known Australian professional in Europe whose reputation was founded on his skills as a track rider. “From the start I remember him racing,” Wiggins said. “He did mainly the six-day races and the worlds. That was why I started racing on the track when I was young, because of him.”
After his parents separated he moved to England and settled in West London, though the suburban villas of Maida Vale are an unlikely route through the southeastern school of circuit racing. Wiggins’s other sporting passion is boxing and in a frenetic madison race he needed all his fighting spirit to resuscitate his dream of a third medal.
“I want to stay pro and stay racing on the road,” he said. “In theory, as Chris Boardman said, there’s no reason why I can’t win prologues in the Tour de France. But I don’t know — I’m just lost for words.” Next weekend, though, he returns to life as a jobbing pro on the European road-racing circuit, living the routine of cheap hotels, motorway café s and gruelling schedules.
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1964 MARY RAND
Gold Long jump
Silver Pentathlon
Bronze 4 x 100m relay
2004 BRADLEY WIGGINS
Gold Individual pursuit
Silver Team pursuit
Bronze Madison