Home > Terms > English, UK (UE) > Bradley Wiggins
Bradley Wiggins
Sir Bradley Marc Wiggins, CBE (born 28 April 1980), nicknamed Wiggo, is a British professional road and track racing cyclist who rides for the UCI ProTeam Team Sky. Wiggins began his career on the track, but has made the transition to road cycling and is one of the few cyclists to gain success in both forms of professional cycling. He won the 2012 Tour de France, becoming the first British winner since it began in 1903. He has won seven Olympic medals, the most won by any British Olympian (a total equalled by Sir Chris Hoy); four of them are gold, the third most gold medals won by a British Olympian, behind Hoy (six) and Sir Steve Redgrave (five).
Wiggins's career began in track cycling, specialising in the pursuit and the madison, before he gradually moved towards road racing. He has won six cycling World Championships, his first in 2003 and his most recent in 2008. He won a bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics, a gold, a silver and a bronze at the 2004 Summer Olympics, two golds at the 2008 Summer Olympics and a gold at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
After the 2008 Olympics, Wiggins took a break from the track to focus on the road. Initially viewed as a time trial specialist and as a rouleur, Wiggins showed his ability in stage races when he came 4th in the 2009 Tour de France (later promoted to 3rd after Lance Armstrong's results were voided in 2012). His first victory in a major stage race came in the 2011 Critérium du Dauphiné, and he also finished 3rd in the 2011 Vuelta a España and 2nd in the time trial at the 2011 UCI Road World Championships. In 2012 Wiggins won the 2012 Paris–Nice, the 2012 Tour de Romandie, the 2012 Critérium du Dauphiné, the 2012 Tour de France and the time trial at the Olympics.
Following his success in 2012, Wiggins was the subject of several honours and awards; the Vélo d'Or award for best rider of the year, the 2012 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, awarded a knighthood as part of the 2013 New Year Honours and nominated for the 2013 Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsman of the Year.
- Part of Speech: proper noun
- Synonym(s):
- Blossary:
- Industry/Domain: Sports
- Category: Cycling
- Company:
- Product:
- Acronym-Abbreviation:
Other Languages:
Member comments
Terms in the News
Featured Terms
Don Quixote
Don Quixote (complete title "The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha") is a novel written by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes ...
Contributor
Featured blossaries
Browers Terms By Category
- Satellites(455)
- Space flight(332)
- Control systems(178)
- Space shuttle(72)
Aerospace(1037) Terms
- General Finance(7677)
- Funds(1299)
- Commodity exchange(874)
- Private equity(515)
- Accountancy(421)
- Real estate investment(192)
Financial services(11765) Terms
- Cardboard boxes(1)
- Wrapping paper(1)
Paper packaging(2) Terms
- Social media(480)
- Internet(195)
- Search engines(29)
- Online games(22)
- Ecommerce(21)
- SEO(8)
Online services(770) Terms
- Marketing communications(549)
- Online advertising(216)
- Billboard advertising(152)
- Television advertising(72)
- Radio advertising(57)
- New media advertising(40)