Bradley Wiggins

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Bradley Wiggins

Bradley Wiggins at the 2009 Northern Rock Cyclone Beaumont Trophy
Personal information
Full name	Bradley Wiggins
Date of birth	28 April 1980 (1980-04-28) (age 29)
Country	England  United Kingdom
Height	1.90 m (6 ft 3 in)[1]
Weight	71 kg (160 lb; 11.2 st)[1]
Team information
Current team	Garmin–Slipstream
Discipline	Road & Track
Role	Rider
Rider type	All-Rounder
Professional team(s)1
2001 2002–2003 2004–2005 2006–2007 2008 2009–	Linda McCartney Racing Team Française des Jeux Crédit Agricole Cofidis Team High Road Garmin–Slipstream
Major wins
Olympic Games, Pursuit (2004, 2008) World Championship, Pursuit (2003, 2007, 2008) World Championship, Madison (2008) World Championship, Team Pursuit (2007, 2008) Dauphiné Libéré, 1 stage (2007) British National Time Trial Championships (2009)
Medal record Medal record Bradley Wiggins Track cycling Competitor for  Great Britain Olympic Games Gold 2008 Beijing Team pursuit Gold 2008 Beijing 4km individual pursuit Gold 2004 Athens 4km individual pursuit Silver 2004 Athens Team pursuit Bronze 2004 Athens Madison Bronze 2000 Sydney Team pursuit World Championships Gold 2003 Stuttgart 4km Individual Pursuit Gold 2007 Palma de Mallorca 4km Individual Pursuit Gold 2007 Palma de Mallorca Team Pursuit Gold 2008 Manchester 4km Individual Pursuit Gold 2008 Manchester Team Pursuit Gold 2008 Manchester Madison Silver 2000 Manchester Team Pursuit Silver 2001 Antwerp Team Pursuit Silver 2003 Stuttgart Team Pursuit Bronze 2002 Ballerup Team Pursuit Competitor for  England Commonwealth Games Silver 2002 Manchester 4km Individual Pursuit Silver 2002 Manchester Team Pursuit Silver 1998 Kuala Lumpur Team Pursuit
Infobox last updated on:
18 July 2009 1 Team names given are those prevailing at time of rider beginning association with that team.

Bradley Marc Wiggins, CBE (born 28 April 1980) is a British professional track and road bicycle racer, currently riding for Garmin–Slipstream. He won three medals on the track at the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics, and two gold medals at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics. He came fourth in the 2009 Tour de France.

Contents 1 Early years and family life 2 International cycling 2.1 2008 2.2 2009 3 Palmarès 3.1 Olympic Games 3.2 World Championships 3.3 Commonwealth Games 3.4 Professional victories 3.5 Grand Tour General Classification results timeline 4 World records 5 Quotes 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Early years and family life

The son of a professional cyclist, Gary Wiggins, Bradley Wiggins was born in Ghent, Belgium and spent his childhood in London with his mother Linda and younger brother, Ryan. He started racing at south London's Herne Hill Velodrome aged 12.^[2] He lives in Chorley, Lancashire. He married Catherine Cockram in Manchester in November 2004. They have two children, Ben and Isabelle.^[3]

[edit] International cycling

At 20, Wiggins won a bronze medal for Britain in the team pursuit at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

In 2001 he signed for the British professional road Linda McCartney Racing Team before it disbanded in early 2001.^[4] He joined Française des Jeux in 2002, before moving to Crédit Agricole in 2004.

At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Wiggins became the first British athlete in 40 years to win three medals at one Games, the last being Mary Rand at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. He won the gold in the pursuit, silver in the team pursuit, and bronze in the madison with his race partner Rob Hayles. Wiggins was appointed OBE in the 2005 New Year Honours for services to sport.^[4]

In 2005, Wiggins rode Giro d'Italia for Crédit Agricole. He moved to Cofidis in 2006, and rode that year's Tour de France. He returned to the track for the Manchester round of the UCI World Cup and the world championships in 2007, winning the individual and team pursuit. He followed on the road by winning the prologue of the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré.

He raced for Cofidis in the 2007 Tour de France and finished fourth in the prologue in London. He won the combativity award on stage six for a long solo breakaway. Cofidis withdrew after Cristian Moreni failed a doping test.^[5]

[edit] 2008

In 2008 he signed with Team High Road, a team now known as Team Columbia – HTC. At the 2008 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Manchester, he won three gold medals: pursuit, team pursuit and madison.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics he again won the pursuit, the first rider to successfully defend a pursuit title at the Olympics. On 17 August, he was a member of the Olympic pursuit team which broke the world record in the heats with 3:55:202, beating Russia to the ride-off for silver and gold.^[6] The following day, the team won the gold with a world record of 3:53:314, beating Denmark by 6.7s.^[7] iggins paired up with Mark Cavendish in the madison and finished ninth^[8].

In October 2008 he published his autobiography, In Pursuit of Glory ^[9] and joined the Garmin–Slipstream team for the 2009 season.^[10]

On 14 December 2008 Wiggins came ninth in the BBC Sports Personality Awards with 5,633 votes.^[11] On 31 December Wiggins was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.^[12]

[edit] 2009

After finishing the 2009 Giro d'Italia 71st, which included second place in the final stage, Wiggins arrived at the 2009 Tour de France having lost six kilos.^[13][14] He came third in the opening time-trial in Monaco and helped Garmin to second place in the team time-trial despite losing four riders. In the first mountain finish, Wiggins finished 12th, and at 5th place overall entering the second week, had the highest second-week place by a British rider since Robert Millar. On the second mountain finish, in Verbier, Wiggins finished fifth to climb to third overall. He was attacked by the Schleck brothers on stage 17 and dropped to sixth, but moved to fourth in the stage 18 time-trial. On stage 20 to Mont Ventoux, Wiggins finished tenth and held fourth by three seconds ahead of Frank Schleck. He held that position in the final stage, joining Robert Millar as best British rider in Tour. ^[15].

Wiggins won the British National Time Trial Championships in September 2009.^[16]

In October 2009, he won the Herald Sun Tour after helping team-mates most of the race. He led after winning the stage five time-trial in Geelong by 14 seconds over team-mate Svein Tuft.

[edit] Palmarès

[edit] Grand Tour General Classification results timeline

Grand Tour	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Giro				134	71
Tour		124	WD		4
Vuelta

WD = withdrew

[edit] World records

• 4000m Team Pursuit, 3:55:202, (as part of Great British team), Beijing China, 2008
• 4000m Team Pursuit, 3:53:314, (as part of Great British team), Beijing China, 2008

[edit] Quotes

• "Most people were too drunk to notice me." On his experiences of late-night practice runs for the London leg of the Tour de France.^[17]

• "It is nice to be recognised for actually achieving something in life as opposed to spending seven weeks in a house on TV with a load of other muppets." A reference to the television programme, Big Brother, after finishing fourth in the Tour de France prologue.^[18]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bradley Wiggins

• @bradwiggins on Twitter
• MTC management profile

v • d • e Riders on Garmin-Transitions Blake Caldwell | Steven Cozza | Tom Danielson | Julian Dean | Hans Dekkers | Jason Donald | Timmy Duggan | Huub Duyn | Lucas Euser | Tyler Farrar | Mike Friedman | Will Frischkorn | Ryder Hesjedal | Trent Lowe | Martijn Maaskant | Daniel Martin | Christian Meier | Cameron Meyer | David Millar | Danny Pate | Kilian Patour | Tom Peterson | Chris Sutton | Svein Tuft | Ricardo van der Velde | Christian Vande Velde | Bradley Wiggins | David Zabriskie | Manager: Jonathan Vaughters

Persondata
NAME	Wiggins, Bradley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Wiggins OBE, Bradley
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Racing cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH	1980-04-28
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ghent, Belgium
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH