Ben Wiggins, leading, during the Tour of Britain and now, having won Europen and world titles on the track, and been crowned British U23 TT champion on the road, he has secured a pro contract (Photo: Bruce Rollinson-SWpix.com)
Ben Wiggins is turning professional fourteen years after cycling down the Champs-Élysées with his father, Bradley Wiggins, the day he won the Tour de France in Paris riding for Team Sky.
Wiggins Jnr first developed as a track rider, and has been European and world champion on the velodrome, but he is now making his name as a road rider too.
He has secured a two-year deal with World Tour team, Jayco AlUla, having ridden for its U23 development team, Hagens Berman Jayco, for the last three years.
Wiggins has been in that U23 development team with Irish riders Adam Rafferty and David Gaffney. Indeed, Rafferty and Wiggins are making the move together to Jayco AlUla.
Axel Merckx, Wiggins’s team boss at Hagens Berman Jayco for the last three season, said he had a lot in common with the young British rider as both were the sons of very famous cyclists.
“The pressure is completely different than for anyone else,” said Merckx, the son of Eddy Merckx, the most accomplished rider in the history of the sport.”
Ben Wiggins, in purple, leads Irish team mates Adam Rafferty, from Co Tyrone, and David Gaffney, from Co Waterford, at the Tour of Rhodes in March, where Wiggins showed flashes of what’s to come (Photo: Nassos Triantafyllou)
Merckx continued of Wiggins Jnr: “We both know it’s going to be difficult to match what our fathers did. But Ben wants to shape his own career and go down his own road.
“His ambition is very big and the sky is the limit for him because he’s so talented and so ambitious. But the pressure is bigger.
“No matter where you go, the first time you go anywhere, you’re ‘the son of’, And that’s not always to deal with.”
Any Irish cycling fans who watched the progress of Gaffney and Rafferty this year will have noted how Wiggins’s climbing has improved, especially for someone who is a classics man and TT rider, and a track cyclist.
Wiggins, still aged just 21, was called up to the Jayco AlUla several times this year, when he also won the U23 TT at the British road championships, and over the previous two seasons.
Though he impressed in races like Tour of Rhodes (2.2), and with attacks at Giro d’Italia Next Gen (2.2U) and Tour de l’Avenir (2.2U), most people will probably have noticed him at Tour of Britain.
He rode that race as part of the British national team and on the final stage, into Earlston, Wiggins proved one of the very strongest aggressors, before finishing in the breakaway in 6th place.
This year he was also part of the Great Britain team that won bronze in the team pursuit at the Europeans, and won gold at the U23 Europeans in the same event last year.
As a junior, he was world champion in the madison and European champion in the points race.