For Great Britain, the victory of Bradley Wiggins, simultaneously with that in women's rowing, has significance breaking the fast with the gold medal collection, which was becoming something of a nightmare for the British. For him, the yellow jersey of the Tour, the success over the 44 km of the time trial, as well as confirming his absolute supremacy in the specialty, has an absolute value because it projects Wiggins to the top of the most medal-winning British athletes, between the World and Olympic every time, bypassing a legend like Steve Redgrave, the rower who in the inaugural ceremony had brought the Olympic torch into the Olympic Stadium, after receiving it from David Beckham on the Thames.
Today's gold joins the three won on the track between single and team pursuit as well as two silvers and a bronze: this is the Olympic haul conquered by Wiggins while in the world championships the Briton won six titles and four podiums. A palmarés so rich that it alone would justify the choice of the organizers of the Games to entrust the most famous sideburns of world cycling – with his flaming yellow jersey from the Tour he just won – the task of opening the opening night of London 2012. But Wiggins, left the track, wanted to arrive at the Olympic appointment with a record of victories on roads that this year has no equal: Paris-Nice, Tour de Romandie, Dauphiné before the triumph in the Grande Boucle. Given this amazing XNUMX-in-a-row, the British immediately forgave him the flop (his and Cavendish's) in Saturday's road test. So much so that all of London poured onto the roads of the race against the clock course around the charming area of Hampton Court in the south-west of the British metropolis. And Wiggins has lived up to expectations this time.
Only the German Tony Martin tried to put pressure on him by setting the best time in the first intermediate place 7,3 km from the start. But immediately afterwards, kilometer after kilometre, Wiggo, with his unmistakable aerodynamic style, imposed the law of the strongest on everyone. In the end, his time was clearly the best. Martin, silver medal, finished second at 42” while in third place, bronze medal, was another Englishman, Christopher Froome, who confirmed all his potential already shown at the Tour. As in the road test, the American Taylor Phinney saw the podium fade by a whisker by finishing fourth. Fifth for the Italian Pinotti, the engineer of our cycling. For Fabian Cancellara, winner of the Beijing time trial, only a courageous test but conditioned by the recent fall in last Saturday's Olympic road race: as always, the Swiss champion lived up to his nickname of Spartacus, fighting hard, but he didn't go over seventh place.
