Cycling: Wiggins to Ride the Roads

Britain's triple Olympic gold medallist Bradley Wiggins is likely to miss the next two world track championships and possibly the 2006 Commonwealth Games to concentrate on major road events including this year's Giro d'Italia and Tour de France.

After this weekend's World Cup meeting in Manchester, Wiggins may not race on the track again until 2007, when he will begin his build-up to the Beijing Olympics, where he will defend the individual pursuit title with the longer-term aim of striking gold in three consecutive games.

"The World Cup will be my last international track race for a few years. I can give the road a few years and will get stronger by riding events like the Tour de France and Tour of Italy. I can still improve in the pursuit and I'll come back stronger in 2008. I'll be 28, then I'll take it on to London in 2012, when I'll be 32. Maybe I can go on to 2016, although that will be pushing it a bit."

The Londoner feels he owes a debt to his professional road team, Credit Agricole, for the freedom they have given him over the past 18 months to pursue his Olympic goals.

"They have an Olympic champion who has beaten Bradley McGee, who is one of the best prologue time-trial riders in the world and they want a piece of me," he said.

Wiggins, the first Briton since 1964 to win three medals in a single games, starts racing next weekend in the Tour Down Under in Australia. His principal aim this season, however, will be the prologue time-trial in the Giro d'Italia on May 7. "It's a dead straight, flat 1.2 kilometre course. As soon as they told me about it I got excited. If I'm strong in the Giro, I will get selected for the Tour. My aim is to finish both."

The Giro opener, he feels, offers him a better opportunity than the opening 20k timetrial in the Tour de France. "If it was five or six kilometres it would be a target, but against (Jan) Ullrich and (Lance) Armstrong it might be too much. I'm motivated by winning the Tour de France prologue and perhaps in half a dozen years I may be a contender for the top 10. I have the physical power, it's just a question of converting it to the road."