Ellingworth: "It all fell into place" for Wiggins' Worlds

Great Britain Road Coach Rod Ellingworth had a long wait for Bradley Wiggins to complete his post-race obligations late on Wednesday evening - but with Britain's first gold medal at the Worlds to celebrate, there was no sign of Ellingworth complaining.

"Everything worked out with Bradley for the last few days, it all fell into place," Ellingworth told Cyclingnews.

"He rode the TT course on Monday evening, nice and easy and he was in his own little zone. When he's like that, it's all pretty good."

According to Ellingworth, the Sunday team time trial performance, where Wiggins had been instrumental in taking Sky to their fourth place had helped the Briton maintain the right competitive momentum up to the last possible moment. Or as the coach put it, "That gave him a lot of confidence, he was flying there."

Then as for the time trial performance itself, Ellingworth described Wiggins as "on fire all the way."

The Briton was "down on Tony [Martin, silver medallist for Germany, top favourite and defending champion] at the first split" - by four seconds after 12.2 kilometres - and "then he moved to a second ahead at the second [at km 23.2] and ten seconds by the third." - at km 35.2.

By that point a medal of some colour was almost a certainty. But it was how Wiggins tackled the course afterwards that virtually ensured that colour was gold.

"Then between there [the third checkpoint, km 35.2] and the bottom of the final climb (km 40) he made another eight seconds. That brought his advantage up to 18 seconds, and that was it." Another eight seconds were taken by Wiggins en route to the finish in the final seven kilometres, but with the gap up to a solid cushion of 18 seconds, they were almost a bonus.

"Like Bradley said in there [the winner's press conference] it was hard to pace, you had to think about how you tackled it."

"I think he and Tim [Kerrison, the Sky trainer working with Team GB during the Worlds] have done a good job [of pre-race analysis] of what the key moments were of that time trial - the two long drags. And that's where Bradley proved he was stronger."

Ellingworth said that one of the best things about the timetrial was not just the result, but that all top three performers had raced in equal conditions.

"It went well, he cornered well, there was no bad luck, the weather stayed good. And I like that, because it was the same for all top three -him, Martin and [Tom] Dumoulin [of Holland, bronze.]"

Although Wiggins approach path to the World Championships has been different to Tony Martins - unlike the German, no Tour, no Vuelta and a comparatively low number of race days - Ellingworth said he believed Wiggins "always had this in the back of his mind. I think this has been a goal for him all year."

On top of that, Ellingworth points out, when it comes to time trialling in single day events, "He's always been very consistent for the last few years."

"Silver in 2011 in the Worlds, 2012 winning the Olympics, silver in 2013 in the Worlds again and then winning here. There's not been a bad year and Brad's good at that." "When he puts his mind to it, he's fantastic, and we'll see the same going up to the Olympics in 2016, in terms of somebody who's dedicated to the job, I'm sure."

In the very short-term, a gold medal in the time trial is the ideal boost to collective morale for Great Britain going into the road-race segment of the World Championships. "It'll really pull the team up," Ellingworth argues. Quite how far it may do that will be clear come Sunday evening.