Video: Bradley Wiggins on his Paris-Roubaix and Olympic track dreams

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It’s all change for Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) this season as he embarks on a new racing programme that will include Paris-Roubaix. The 2012 Tour de France winner, who has made no secret of his love for arguably cycling’s most prestigious one-day race, told Cyclingnews that he would centre is early season efforts on the race.

Speaking exclusively to Cyclingnews at the Mallorca Challenge, Wiggins confirmed that he would ride a handful of cobbled one-day races this spring, all with the intention of making a mark on Roubaix in April. It’s a race he’s ridden several times as a professional and, despite never featuring in the finale, he believes that he can possibly contend with the likes of Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen.

“I’ve got a different race plan from what I’m used to in the past,” Wiggins told Cyclingnews.

“Working back from Roubaix I’ll do a few Classics before that, E3, Wevelgem, and I’m going to do Tirreno for the first time as well.”

Roubaix is a race that has been dominated by the one day stars in the last 30 years, often with Grand Tour contenders tending to shun the race due to the risks involved and the need to peak early in the season and one has to go back to 1981 and Bernard Hinault to find a Tour winner who has added Roubaix to his palmarès.

The one-day race isn’t the only event Wiggins has his eye on this season. He also returns to the Tour of California in May, and will be hoping to fine tune his form and make Sky’s cut for the Tour de France in July.

While Wiggins looks to enrich his already extensive palmarès with more of cycling’s riches, he is also looking ahead, with the Rio Olympics in 2016 a possible venue for his final outing as a professional. It all began on the track for Wiggins, who has seven Olympic medals [four gold, one silver, two bronze] to his name.

“I would love to be part of a 5th Olympics and try to finish with the team pursuit where it all started in Sydney. I’ve unfinished business with the track.”
 

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