Wiggins and Cavendish win gold

Mark Cavendish and Sir Bradley Wiggins reflect on their
Madison win
Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish
overcame a late crash to win gold in the Madison
at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in
London on Sunday.
Cavendish fell with 11 of the race's 200 laps to go
but team-mate Wiggins was able to keep on riding
and by then they had already built an unassailable
advantage over the rest of the field.
Their points total of 21 was enough beat France
into second place by seven points and Spain into
third by nine points.
Wiggins (left) and Cavendish celebrate their victory
The victory was a repeat of their win in the same
event at the 2008 World Championships in
Manchester.
Wiggins now has seven track world titles on the
track spanning 14 years, while Cavendish now has
three on the track, all in the Madison.
Wiggins said: "It's my last race on this track. We
knew we would have the legs later in the race. We
kept biding our time. We didn't come here to finish
fourth and, fortunately, we gained enough points
early on.
"I rode this event for the first time in 1998. This
was the last and what better way to do it?"
Cavendish added: "It's our second world
championship together. I'm so happy. It's one of
the last times we will ride together in the UK. It's
incredible.
Wiggins (left) and Cavendish regained their 2008 world
Madison title
"It was just about staying up there and being safe.
Obviously, we weren't [after the crash], but the
crowd kept us going."
Wiggins and Cavendish were caught out in the
early stages of the race when Colombia,
Switzerland and France all gained a lap and took
control, but they responded calmly by building the
biggest points total in the field by winning the
third, fourth and fifth of the race's 10 sprints.
They still needed to lap the rest of the field take
the overall lead and duly did so in the final third of
the race with the help of Spanish duo Sebastian
Mora and Albert Torres.
Wiggins and Cavendish delighted an adoring home crowd
Cavendish's crash was not a disaster given that
Wiggins kept riding, but the 35-year-old admitted
staying with the peloton while waiting for
Cavendish to rejoin the race had left him "foaming
at the mouth".
Wiggins added: "We had this plan: rack up points
if we could, but don't go crazy because it's
always won on laps. So we picked up quite a few
points, and then we tried a few attacks but people
kept following us.
"But then we got the gap, and that was it. We said
at the start, if we could get a lap with the Spanish,
we couldn't go far wrong. We needed their help to
get the lap."
The gold medal ensured Britain ended the World
Championships top of the medals table with five
golds, one silver and three bronzes.