BRADLEY Wiggins has set his sights on claiming gold at the Rio Olympics in 2016 after losing out to Australia in the final of the men’s team pursuit at the Commonwealth Games.
The Australian quartet of Jack Bobridge, Luke Davison, Alex Edmondson and Glenn O’Shea set a new Commonwealth record on their way to beating England to add the title to the World Championship they claimed in Colombia in February.
Wiggins, making his return to track cycling for the first time since 2008, couldn’t inspire his teammates of Ed Clancy, Andy Tennant and Steven Burke to victory as the 34-year-old collected the fourth silver medal of his Commonwealth Games career.
And the 2012 Tour de France winner says he will focus on the track as he aims to claim a fifth Olympic gold in Rio and suggested that his road cycling days were behind him.
“I’ve kind of done the road now. I’ve bled it dry,” he told the BBC.
“The road is quite cut-throat. The track feels more like a family and a closer-knit group of people.” He added: “That will probably be it for the Grand Tours. I can’t imagine doing that now.”
“Over the next two years Rio is the goal and we’re going to work back from that target,” Wiggins said.
“It takes four people to be on a par and we’ve all had such different preparations this year. I think there’s a lot of positives to take from it but we’ve definitely got some work to do.
“Catching the Australians is not going to be easy, we’ve got our work cut out because they set the standard once again. But we’ve been in that position before and it’s not a bad position to be in.
“Two years is definitely enough time to get to that standard. I mean we put in two world class rides there with just four weeks together to prepare for it. AFP