Sir Bradley Wiggins begins bid for fifth Olympic gold – but is he Britain’s greatest ever sportsman?

1/17

The boss of British Cycling has likened Sir Bradley Wiggins to Floyd Mayweather and believes he should be regarded as Britain’s greatest ever sportsman.

Wiggins is bidding for a fifth Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro this summer after quitting road-racing to return to the track in the team pursuit and will face the first acid test of those plans at this week’s World Championships in London.

The 35-year-old holds Olympic titles from both the track and road, is the first Briton to win the Tour de France and holds the world hour record. Shane Sutton believes Wiggins deserves to be held in greater esteem and says his versatility puts him on a par with boxing great Mayweather, who retired last year.

“Brad’s up there with Floyd Mayweather winning world titles at five different weights,” said British Cycling technical director Sutton.

“If you dissect what Brad’s done, I don’t see how he can’t be put up against the very greatest sportsmen of all time. I don’t think people properly grasp what he’s achieved. I don’t think he’s just Britain’s greatest cyclist ever, he deserves to be seen as one of our greatest sportsmen of all time. For me, he’s one of our sporting legends.

“Just think about it; he’s won a team pursuit over four kilometres, to time trials on the road, to stage races, to the Tour de France. That’s like Mo Farah winning absolutely everything from the 400metres to the marathon. Brad, to me, deserves more recognition.”

"Brad’s done so much  it’s like  Mo Farah winning absolutely everything from the 400m to the marathon"  

&#13; <p>Shane  Sutton</p>&#13;

Sutton is confident the Wiggins factor can help Britain retain the Olympic team pursuit title won at London 2012, the Games where he clinched gold on the road in the time trial.

“If Brad applies himself and gets the structure around his life right, he’s pretty much invincible,” said Sutton. “I think we’re beginning to see that with him now. He’s really committed to the track programme, he’s got his head down and he’s getting on with the job. We’re lucky to have him.”

The team pursuit is on Thursday, day two of the championships at the Olympic Park, and Wiggins will also be riding in the madison along with former Team Sky colleague Mark Cavendish.

This will be the first time they will be team-mates in the madison since missing out on a medal in that discipline at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, while Cavendish will also ride in the omnium.

Unlike Wiggins, Cavendish is focusing on both the road and track in 2016 and Sutton admitted the sprinter’s Olympic ambition was “a very tough ask”.

He said: “No one knows if he will pull it off. London’s a good test. We’re 100 per cent behind him and I can’t speak highly enough of him, the effort he’s put in and what he’s brought to the team. We will give him absolutely every opportunity to make the team.”

In London, Cavendish and Wiggins could be upstaged by Laura Trott, who rose to fame with double gold at the same velodrome four years ago in the team pursuit and omnium.

Despite two Olympic titles plus five world and 10 European golds, Sutton believes the 23-year-old is still some way from peaking.

“Laura’s nowhere near her full potential yet but she still goes out there and wins races,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll see her best in Rio, I think that’s to come in Tokyo four years later and, if you’re one of her rivals, that’s not great news is it? She just gets better on a daily basis. It takes a very good person to beat her.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in