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Bradley Wiggins’s son Ben claims silver medal at first World Championships
The 18-year-old follows in the footsteps of his father who became the first British winner of the Tour de France in 2012
Ben Wiggins, son of 2012 Tour de France winner and five-time Olympic champion Sir Bradley, said he “backed up the hype” after claiming silver in the men’s junior time trial at the UCI World Championships in Scotland.
The 18-year-old finished 24.78 seconds off the winning time of Australia’s Oscar Chamberlain, who took gold over the 22.8km course in a time of 28 minutes 29.6 seconds, which ended with a steep climb to Stirling Castle.
His father, who sealed a first British win in the Tour de France in 2012, was in Stirling to watch his son celebrate the biggest road racing achievement of his fledgling career.
“I was seven when my dad won the Tour,” said Wiggins, who won European points race gold at last year’s junior track championships. “Pretty much after that, he was probably the most famous man in Britain for a while. When you’ve got people camping outside your house and stuff, this is nothing compared to that.
“Having to miss days of school because we couldn’t get out, yeah, anything that comes now, unless it’s worse than that, I’m sure I can deal with it. There have been a few times when it’s been quite hard. But days like today, it’s nothing really, because I’ve backed up the hype.”
Wiggins does not only live in the shadow of his father’s sporting pedigree. He is coached by Giles Pidcock, father of Olympic mountain bike champion and Tour de France stage winner, Tom. It is little wonder, then, that given he is surrounded by such cycling excellence, his overriding feeling after claiming silver was one of pure ecstasy.
“Obviously winning a world championship medal at my first worlds, it can’t get much better other than getting the jersey and I’m sure there’ll be more opportunities to get that so I can’t complain today,” said Wiggins, who bounced back after being forced to withdraw from last week’s junior road race. “If you’d told me I needed to sacrifice the road race for a medal in the time trial I would have taken it.”
It is another result that helps Wiggins, a European champion on the track and winner of the Trophee Centre Morbihan Nations Cup road race in France, carve out his own identity separate to that of his famous father.
Meanwhile, British champion Charlie Aldridge upgraded his national jersey to a rainbow one with victory in the under-23s cross-country Olympic race, using a big attack on the final lap to ride clear of France’s Adrien Boichis and win by 13 seconds.
“On that last lap, I just went all out,” said the 22-year-old from Perth, a former junior world champion. “I didn’t really believe it until I got on that finish line.”