Wiggins likely to skip London Olympic track events

Bradley Wiggins will concentrate on the road races at the London Olympics, and will most likely skip the track events. The Team Sky rider will turn his attention to the Tour de France and the Olympic road race and time trial next summer.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Wiggins won gold in both the individual and team pursuits, but he will probably not defend them. "The chances of him doing the team pursuit are really slim now," Team Sky race coach Rod Ellingworth told The Guardian. "I don't think he will be doing it. He wants to do the Tour then the road race and time trial at the Olympics."

Wiggins will not ride the team pursuit at either the London World Cup meet in February nor the World Championships in Melbourne in April. In addition, the pursuit team has been doing intensive training the last few weeks, but without Wiggins.

"He doesn't have the track in his programme at the moment," said the team pursuit coach, Dan Hunt. "It's certainly not his priority."

Just about the only chance of him taking part in the Olympic track events would be as a last-minute replacement, if for example, one of the riders became ill.

"His priority is the time trial and road race, but he does have the proven ability to step in with a few days' preparation as he did before the Manchester World Cup last season,” Hunt said.