Interview With Bradley Wiggins

After winning Britain's second gold medal in two days of competition, taking cycling to the top of the British medal table alongside the sailors, Bradley Wiggins was dazed but upbeat as he slumped in a chair in the velodrome centre, to reflect on the 256 seconds of pain that felt like a lifetime and could well have changed his 24-year-old life forever.

'It's hard to describe,' said the Ghent-born Londoner, whose father Gary competed as a professional, as did his wife Cathy's father, Dave. 'I haven't stopped and thought about what has happened since I finished. Initially I felt relief as I crossed the line that the day was finally over.

'Since lunchtime it had been horrible, but I managed to control it. What got to me, what made it unbearable, was the thought of what was about to happen, that this is what the last 12 years of my life have been about and I've got to put it into the next four minutes.'

'I was relieved that I wasn't facing [Spain's] Sergi Escobar, I wanted to meet Bradley McGee in the final, but then I thought 'shit, this guy is a fantastic competitor. I may have put two and a half seconds into him yesterday, but you never know, it can be the other way today, because he's such a fighter.'

During the four minutes that 'changed his life', Wiggins said he felt 'tremendous concentration and suffering. I was riding on a fine line where you are always on the point of blowing. I got away quick, which was down to the nerves, the aggression, the excitement and the adrenalin. But Brad is a great pursuiter and I had no idea where he was.

'I just concentrated on my schedule, which was for a 4min 16sec ride. I had to stay on my schedule and forget about him for the first two kilometres. My coach Simon Jones was walking the line to show me how far ahead I was, and I started to see McGee at six laps to go.

'That's the point when you begin to think you've won a pursuit, but at the same time there's an enormous amount of pain, suffering, and I had to block it out and get to the line. I didn't know I'd won until I crossed the line, the last laps I was really suffering, then the feeling was just indescribable, that the four minutes was over at last.'

Wiggins' family - Cathy, his mother, brother, and father-in-law - were still on the trackside savouring the occasion a good hour after he had the gold medal slipped over his shoulders, and he was with them again as he had been in the first moments of euphoria when the race was won.

'This is for them as much as for me. They live your life not their's, how they live is dictated by what I want to do, that's the sacrifice you have to make when you are going for something this big.'

Wiggins will have two further chances to add to his medal haul: in the team pursuit that takes place today and tomorrow - and where he was part of the bronze medal-winning squad in Sydney - and in the madison relay, where he is partnered with Rob Hayles, on Wednesday.

'We have a strong chance in the team pursuit, it's been the Australians and us for the last few years. I think the other guys in the team are itching to get on the track, for the last few days we have come back in the evenings and telling them all about it, so they've felt out of it.'

The madison, meanwhile, offers the duo a chance to take a medal they lost in Sydney thanks to a crash in the final laps when silver seemed assured.

'It's our private little thing, we missed out four years ago, and Rob has now missed out on an individual medal in two Games, so we will be up for it.'

Wiggins is proud of his sport, and proud to be part of its new-found prominence. 'British cycling is on top of the world. It's been a long time coming, but it's about time our sport shone.'

The next four days could see the lustre become brighter and brighter.