Bradley Wiggins finished off a remarkable month to become the first man to win the Tour de France and an Olympic gold medal in the same year with an imperious victory in the time trial at the London Games on this day in 2012.
The Team Sky rider had crossed the line at Champs-Elysees with the yellow jersey on July 22 and 10 days later turned his attention to the time-trial on home turf.
After a cautious start, Wiggins developed a lead over Tony Martin by the second time check around Hampton Court Palace and sealed another Olympic medal with a time of 50 minutes 39.54 seconds ahead of Martin (51:21:54) and Chris Froome (51:47:87).
No athlete in British Olympic history is more decorated than @SirWiggo 🚴♂️ Eight medals for Sir Brad and just eight days to go in our #Tokyo2020 Olympic countdown 🇯🇵 pic.twitter.com/lsOaA8PQ2q — Team GB (@TeamGB) July 15, 2021
Born in Ghent to an Australian father and British mother but brought up in London, his extraordinary 2012 started with victories at Paris-Nice, the Tour de Romandie and the Criterium du Dauphine to raise expectation before the Tour de France.
Third place at stage seven saw Wiggins take the yellow jersey for the first time and he never looked back with a time-trial victory at stage 19 enough to all but secure victory.
It saw him become the first British rider to win the Tour de France and confidence was extremely high ahead of the London Games just over a week later.
While the road race did not go to plan for Wiggins, he was able to add another Olympic medal to his tally in the time-trial to become the most decorated Olympian in Team GB history with seven medals, one more than Sir Steve Redgrave.
Reflecting on his achievements, the rider said: "I cannot put it into words. I wouldn't do it justice. Here, around the streets of London, the noise is just amazing. I don't think anything will top that. I've just won the Tour de France. It's just been phenomenal."
Wiggins would not compete in the Tour de France again but rounded off his career with a fifth Olympic gold in 2016 at the Rio Games in the team pursuit event with Great Britain.
At the end of the year Wiggins officially retired and declared: "Kids from Kilburn don't win Olympic golds and Tour de Frances! They do now."
