Britain takes pursuit gold, China wins women’s team sprint

“It was never about that [becoming Britain’s greatest, most decorated Olympian] for me”.

Along with Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Owain Doull he won his fifth gold in the team pursuit, making him Britain’s most decorated Olympian of all time with eight medals.

“I wanted to go out with this”, he said.

The 2012 Tour de France and London 2012 Olympic time trial victor had given-up his successful road career in order to mount what many had considered a futile bid to return to the track – but he had proved his critics wrong once again.

“I’m riding the Tour of Britain in two weeks time so I want to get back and keep riding my bike so that doesn’t become a slog”, said Wiggins, whose last race will be the Six Days of Gent in November.

“I wanted it to end like this, not some crappy little race in the north of France, Paris-Tour in the rain, climbing off in the feed (zone) or whatever”.

Sir Bradley Wiggins has drawn his illustrious Olympic career to an end, going out on a high with a gold medal as part of Great Britain’s team pursuit squad.

“Day to day he came through it and to go from that to win in such an incredible race that was so close – has left us speechless”.

“For the next two years I’d like to step away, focus on the road with Sky and see what I can do on that, try to follow what Brad’s done on the road and G (Geraint Thomas)”, Doull said. “Now it’s done, and it’s more relief than anything”. I was just saying to myself “thank f*** that’s over”.

“We never underestimated them for one minute”. The champion athlete took home his fifth gold medal after the men’s team pursuit race on day seven of the Games.

The 31-year-old said: “This is the best of them all”.

Denmark claimed the bronze medal after comfortably overwhelming New Zealand in 3:53.789.

“Crossing the line there ahead of the Aussies has made every pedal rev and every training session worthwhile”.

Ed Clancy won his third and Steven Burke his second, with both track specialists stating their intention to go on to Tokyo 2020. “It comes down to that, I think”, Bobridge said. However, in what might be construed as the kind of retaliatory swipe that seems to characterise the pair’s amusing bickering married couple schtik, Wiggins confirmed rumours that Cavendish had not been included in the team because he had not been good enough in training and was unable to keep up with the rest of the team.

Britain were trailing their perennial rivals until 500m to go, when a huge roar erupted from the numerous Britons in the crowd.

Gold medalist Bradley Wiggins of Britain, left, poses with his wife Catherine after winning the Men’s team pursuit final at the Rio Olympic Velodrome during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, Aug. 12, 2016.

Meanwhile, the Chinese pairing of Jinjie Gong and Tianshi Zhong dominated the women’s team sprint, beating Russian Federation in the final.

The dressage team also won silver – with Spencer Wilton, Fiona Bigwood, Carl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin beaten into second by world champions Germany.