Bradley Wiggins appears to have gone back on previous statements that he’d retire after the London Olympics, saying that he could remain in the sport for another decade.
“I've got another ten years, my goal is another three Olympic games,” he told BBC London 94.9 today. “I've been quite fortunate in my career with injuries and crashes, up to now things have held up pretty well.”
In September 2009, Wiggins told BBC Sport that he envisaged a much shorter future in cycling.
"I want to defend my pursuit titles in London but it is quite far away to think about,” he stated, referring to the 2012 Olympic Games.
"This year still hasn't sunk in but London is at the back of my mind and I'd love to be going for number three in the individual. It will be a nice way to end my career if I do end it there, which I probably will.”
Wiggins has competed in three Olympic Games thus far, and has a superb record. He took bronze in the team pursuit in Sydney 2000, then four years later became the first British athlete in four years to take three medals in one Olympics. He grabbed gold in the individual pursuit, silver in the team pursuit and bronze in the Madison.
In Beijing, he clocked up gold medals in both the individual and team pursuit.
The omnium and team pursuit races are likely to be his main focus in London 2012, as the individual pursuit has controversially been dropped. He will have a number of strong challengers in the omnium event, including double world pursuit champion Taylor Phinney (USA) and Jack Bobridge, who recording a storming 4 minutes and 14.427 seconds in the Australian track championships last February. That was comfortably quicker than Wiggins’ personal best of 4 minutes 15.031 seconds set in Beijing.
Wiggins’ Great Britain team-mate Geraint Thomas is also another big rival, having clocked up a time of 4min 15.015 seconds at the Manchester track World Cup in October 2009. They are therefore all very capable in the individual pursuit discipline, and should also be strong in the other elements of the omnium.
Dismisses talk that Brailsford is over-stretched:
Wiggins caused a bit of a stir earlier today when the Telegraph newspaper carried an interview where he labelled the American track team as ‘useless’. He was responding to an earlier VeloNation interview with former British national team rider and Olympic champion Jamie Staff, who is now working as a coach with the US national track team.
Staff suggested that British Cycling’s track team was starting to ‘show cracks’ due to Dave Brailsford’s dual role with it and Team Sky.
Wiggins elaborated on the earlier remarks in the BBC interview, which will be broadcast in its entirety on Sunday from 1400 GMT.
“Dave, that's what he does, that's what he's professional at, his man management, he's done a great job,” he said. “We're bang in the middle of two Olympic Games and this is the important time, the next two years, and the medal haul at the Olympic Games. Until that happens people can't really criticise.”
“These are just rumours and myths that have been put out there but no-one actually knows the facts of what he's actually doing and that's half the trouble of these things. Cycling is booming and the bigger it gets the more criticism it seems to get, which is a shame, because we are doing so well at the moment."
The British team has showed a drop in overall dominance when compared to the Olympic Games, but hopes to step things up again in the next two World Cups.