Bradley Wiggins: 'It's time for me to step up a gear'

Britain's highest achiever in the Tour de France explains why this year is his golden chance to take on the world's best

(GETTY IMAGES)

From the deserts of the Middle East, the cultured boulevards Paris can seem a long way away. While the French capital boasts huge crowds every year for the final stage of the Tour de France, spectators lining the route of the recently completed Tour of Qatar were as likely to be camels as humans. Mirages are not unknown in the Emirates either, although Bradley Wiggins sees things very clearly. Fourth in the Tour de France last year, Wiggins is focused on improving his result when the City of Light welcomes cycling's most famous event at the end of July.

"The goal is to win the Tour," says the amiable Londoner, bluntly, as the Sky jamboree gets action under way in Oman for the cycling calendar's next early-season event. Not that Team Sky's most high-profile signing is getting carried away with himself. "Last year there were two riders that were far stronger than me, Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador, and who climb far better," he adds. "However, there are maybe eight or 10 guys, all of whom could get on the podium, and I'm one of them."

So if he could sign on the dotted line now for third overall, would he reach for his pen? "Definitely," comes the instant response, "because I'm not the favourite. I won't rule out anything, particularly if the rivalry between Contador and [Lance] Armstrong flares up again. Or Andy [Schleck] could lose two minutes on a first-week stage. But I've finished fourth overall and this year I have to see if I can improve. It's shit or bust time."

Wiggins is doing all he can to live up the great expectations that will inevitably weigh on his efforts in the summer. In contrast to his behaviour post-Athens Olympics 2004, when he celebrated his gold by going on a three-month drinking spree, the 29-year-old has behaved with immaculate professionalism since last year's fourth, the equal best by a Briton in the history of the event. Perhaps most significant was his decision to leave Garmin-Slipstream for Sky. It was a move that brought Wiggins a certain amount of flak, but he argues it was inevitable. "I never envisaged coming to Sky until I finished fourth," he says. "But once that happened, there was no way I couldn't be a part of it. There's all that attention to detail the Sky guys really specialise in, a lot going on behind the scenes, guys number-crunching my data all the time. No improvisation.

"I'll be the sole leader, too, and it's massive knowing I'll have seven guys looking out for me. After the Tour, it was really moving getting emails from [Sky team-mates] Steve [Cummings] and Geraint [Thomas], who'd grown up with me in the [British Cycling] track programme, saying they really wanted to be in the Tour for me. They knew how much I'd given to do it, and there was no doubt in their minds how I did it. It's really reassuring."

Wiggins' "no doubt in their minds" comments is an indirect reference to road-racing's perennial bugbear, the taking of banned substances. The Briton says it was only after seeing how another committed anti-doper, former team-mate Christian Vande Velde, took fourth in the 2008 Tour that he began to believe in his own chances. "Watching Christian was what inspired me. I thought, 'If Christian can do it, there's hope for everyone'."

Nonetheless, last year's result came as something of a surprise. Not just that but, given Wiggins' lack of specialist preparation, it was an incredible result. "It was only in the Tour of Italy [in May] that I saw my climbing potential and it wasn't until a week before the Tour ended that I really believed it," he says. "I didn't look at the Tour route until I got to the start, I wasn't a protected rider early on, and I was still making massive improvements throughout.

"This time we'll do it all differently. I'll be checking out the route, doing recons of all the big climbs."

The Tour is far from his only goal, though. He will also be doing the Commonwealth Games "to try to complete the set of gold medals I've already got", and he will having a serious crack at "both leading and winning a stage in the Tour of Italy, too.

"Italy's going to be like a dress rehearsal for the Tour, at least for the first half, after which I'll ease back." This is radically different, Wiggins points out, to "the usual Tour contenders' approach which is to play it softly until the Tour begins [on 3 July]. Instead I'm doing races like Qatar and Italy, building up my self-confidence and getting a good base" – and simultaneously, by working for his team-mates, reinforcing loyalties in a strategy which will pay dividends come July.

Not everyone, of course, is as optimistic as Wiggins and Sky that he will repeat last year's Tour heroics. According to Wiggins, there are still "a lot of people who believe I'm going to lose miserably. But I say, what's the point of not trying?"

Among those arguing that Wiggins benefited from an "easy" 2009 Tour is Jonathan Vaughters, his former manager in Garmin. "I love Jonathan to bits but he's an emotional time bomb," Wiggins argues. "If I hadn't changed teams, he'd be bigging up my chances, saying the complete opposite."

Whatever the result, Wiggins says he'd like to leave a benchmark: something for the talented young British riders to aim at. He has seen one rider who he expects to follow in his tyre-tracks. "The next one could be [20-year-old Sky cyclist] Pete Kennaugh," he says. "If a Brit is going to win a Tour in the next decade, apart from me, it'll probably be Pete. When one person does well, it makes you think it's achievable, just like when Jason [Queally] took gold on the track in Sydney. That set things up for the next 10 years. Success breeds success."

While others may have shocked by his road-race success, Wiggins was not. "It's not so surprising as all that," he says. "People don't realise that I've been doing road-racing for 10 years, it's not like I'm [Olympic sprint specialist] Chris Hoy and had to lose 30 kilos, either.

"But it's a good story. The 'Wiggins transition' story is one that people like to hear." The next chapter could be the best of the lot.

Wiggins' world: His career so far

Born: 28 April 1980, Ghent, Belgium, and later moves to London as a child.

2003 Makes major breakthrough with individual pursuit win at World Track Championships at Stuttgart.

2004 Wins gold in individual pursuit, silver in the team pursuit and bronze in the madison at the Athens Olympics, making him the first Briton in 40 years to win three medals at one Games.

2008 Takes home the gold again at the Beijing Olympics to become the first rider in Olympics history to defend a pursuit title successfully. Also wins gold with the record-breaking team pursuit victory at the Games.

2009 Finishes fourth in the Tour de France, the best finish for a British rider in 25 years, and receives CBE for services to cycling.