Ride of the Year homepage | Wiggins crushes opposition in final TT |
Bradley Wiggins’ stunning Tour de France stage 19 time trial victory has been voted British Cycling’s Ride of the Year 2012.
The win, which effectively confirmed the Team Sky rider as Great Britain’s first Tour de France winner, took 39% of the vote to top the 10 nominations. Chris Froome’s Tour de France stage 7 win at La Planche des Belles Fillesurne followed with 13% of the vote whilst Laura Trott’s 500m time-trial heroics to take gold in the omnium at the London Olympics completed the top three with 12%.
Wiggins, 32, follows mountain bike rider Danny Hart who won the award in 2011 for his breathtaking world championships winning run.
"The last 10 or 15 kilometres, I was thinking of everything really,” Wiggins said after the 53.5km stage from Bonneval to Chartres. “From my childhood to this point, the days I got into cycling as a kid: my family – my mother, my wife and children, my grandfather who died two years ago... and it was all for them really. It was an incredible feeling and it was spurring me on to go harder and harder and harder.
"Some people in sport say, ‘you’re in the zone.' But I was in it today in a way that I've never been before.”
Wiggins was also successful in the Tour de Romandie, Paris-Nice and retained his Criterium du Dauphine crown before the Tour, before then going onto win Olympic time trial gold less than two weeks after making history on the Champs-Élysées.
