| CYCLING hs been contested at every Summer Olympics since the inaugural Games in 1896, but women did not take part until the 1984 Road Race and since 1988 they have also compete in track events. Mountain Biking was introduced in 1996 and BMX in 2008.
After Athletics and Rowing, Cycling has been the next most successful sport for Great Britain at the Olympics with 26 gold medals. Britain has entered the cycling at every Olympics except the St Louis Games of 1900 when all 18 entrants were from the United States.
In Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins, Britain possesses the two most decorated cyclists in Olympic history as each has won seven medals and Chris Hoy's six golds is also an Olympic cycling record.
Clarrie Kingsbury, the winner of the 20 kilometres race in 1908 was Britain's first official cycling gold medallist.
Britain's Gold Medallists: BARTLETT, Charles Henry
Born: 6 February, 1885, Bermondsey, London, England
Died: 30 November 1968, Enfield, London, England
Olympics competed in: 1 (1908)
Olympic medals won:
1908 Gold - Cycling (100 kilometres)
Charles Bartlett started racing at the age of 16 and was a member of the Prince Alfred Cycling Club, winning many races between 1902 and 1904. But his greatest year was to come in 1908.
Firstly he won his first National title at 50 miles (which he retained in 1909) and a couple of weeks later he was the Olympic champion in the 100 kilometres race but with two-thirds of the race gone, victory seemed unlikely.
With around 30 kilometres to go, Bartlett punctured and had a bad fall which damaged his bike and he needed a replacement machine. He raced across the track to get one and remounted, but he was sent back to the point where he fell off to re-start the race. By then he was nearly a lap behind.
The youngest of all the finalists, Bartlett showed tremendous courage in catching the pack and when he looked as though he had used up all his energy he managed to go with team-mates Billy Pett and Charles Denny, and the Frenchman Octave Lapize into the sprint for the line on the final lap after more than two and a half hours racing. And it was Bartlett who crossed the line first, one length ahead of second-placed Denny.
Bartlett later became president of Pickwick Bicycle Club (founded 1870) one of Britain's leading and oldest cycling clubs.
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BOARDMAN, Christopher Miles "Chris"
Born: 26 August 1968, Hoylake, Wirral, Merseyside, England
Olympics competed in: 4 (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000)
Olympic medals won:
1992 - Gold (Men's 4000 metres individual pursuit)
1996 - Bronze (Men's individual time trial)
Chris Boardman first attracted media attention when he won the National Schoolboy 10 miles championship in 1984 at the age of 15 and just one year later he became the youngest person to represent Great Britain at the senior World Championships.
Having won a bronze medal in the team pursuit at the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, and also won National Hill Climb titles, Chris was appointed captain of the British track team at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Sadly the British team failed to win a single medal.
Four years later at the 1992 Olympics and Chris Boardman was again attracting media attention this time when he appeared on his new aerodynamic bike built for him by Lotus, the car manufacturer. And it worked as won the individual pursuit title. It was the first of only five golds Britain won at the entire Barcelona Games, and Britain's first cycling gold for 72 years.
Chris turned professional in 1993 and won his first race, the Eddy Merckx time trial near Brussels in September. Two months earlier he set the world one hour record in Bordeaux - breaking the record set by fellow Briton Graeme Obree just six days earlier. He lost the record in 1994 but regained it on two more occasions, in 1996 and 2000, and each time in Manchester.
Boardman established himself as a time trial specialist and won the Tour de France Prologue on three occasions; in 1994, 1997 and 1998. He also won the bronze medal in the individual pursuit at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Sadly Chris was forced to retire not long after the 2000 Olympics suffering from osteopenia, a bone disease which could have left long term damage if he had carried on cycling. After his retirement he became an advisor to the British team and played a big part in the British medal hauls at both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. He retired from the role of Director and Research and Deveopment after the London Games in 2012.
Meticulous in his approach to the sport he was known as "The Professor". He is married with six children and still lives in Hoylake on the Wirral where he was born. He was honoured with an MBE in the 1993 New Year Honours list. He was one of the inaugural inductees into the new British Cycling Hall of Fame in 2009. Also after his cycling days ended he took up a new pursuit of diving and cave diving.
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BURKE, Steven James
Born; 4 March 1988, Burnley, Lancashire, England
Olympics competed in: 2 (2008, 2012)
Olympic medals won:
2008 - Bronze (Men's 4000 metres individual pursuit)
2012 - Gold (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
Steven Burke first rode a two-wheel bike when he was four. Ten years later he competed in his first cycling race after switching fvourite sports from football. But it was hardly surprising because his mother and grandfather were both top class cyclists.
Burke's mother Sharon cycled for Great Britain in the 1980s, and his grandfather Brian Wesson also rode at national level. Brian fractured his skull while riding in Mallorca at the age of 71 in 2009, when he was on holiday with his local cycling club, but happily he recovered.
Within six years of that first race Steven was competing at the Olympic Games, but it came as such of a surprise that his family didn't make the trip to China to watch him and they went on holiday to Bulgaria instead not expecting him to be taking oart in Beijing!
He went to the Beijing Olympics as a reserve for the pursuit but during training he knocked nearly 12 seconds off his personal best time and got his chance to compete.
He reached the semi-final of the individual pursuit where he beat the Russian Aleksey Markov for the bronze medal with defending champion Bradley Wiggins taking the gold medal.
Four years later it was a double triumph for Burke who was then part of the British pursuit team that won the gold medal at both the London Olympics and the World Championships in 2012.
Steven received the MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list.
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CLANCY, Edward "Ed"
Born: 12 March 1985, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England
Olympics competed in: 2 (2008, 2012)
Olympic medals won:
2008 - Gold (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
2012 - Gold (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
2012 - Bronze (Men's omnium)
Ed Clancy got into cycling when his father bought him his first bike when he was aged five. At 15 he was one of the first intakes into the new British Cycling Academy, which also included Mark Cavendiash and Geraint Thomas - former Manchester flatmates of Clancy.
He was part of the British team that won the pursuit at the World Championship in 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2012.
A great pursuit rider he takes the responsibility for leading out and getting the team up to speed at the start of each race and he is regarded as one of the best in the world at this and as a result he helped Great Britain to the 4000 metres team pursuit gold medals in the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics. He is also an outstanding sprinter.
At the London Games he also took part in the individual omnium, a new multi-race event. He was the mnium world champion in 2010 but had to settle for bronze at the Olympics.
Clancy also has four European Championship gold medals to his name.
Following his successes on the track, Ed is now actively involved in the British Cycling Academy programme which gave him his big break. He gives a lot back to the sport and is a great ambassador for cycling and does a lot to encourage youngsters to take up cycling. He is also a keen motor sports fan and attends two- and four-wheeled meetings across the country when time permits.
Clancy was awarded the MBE in the 2009 New Year Honours list.
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COOKE, Nicole Denise
Born: 13 April 1983, Swansea, Wales
Olympics competed in: 3 (2004, 2008, 2012)
Olympic medals won:
2008 - Gold (Women's individual road race)
As a youngster Nicole used to go on family cycling holidays with her parents and brother, and at the age of 11 she expressed a real interest in cycling as a sport after she discovered she could race against and beat all the boys her own age and in 1994 she joined the Cardiff Ajax Cycling Club.
Between 1994-98 she proved herself an outstanding prospect and won 32 British Schools Cycling Association titles in virtually all disciplines. She won four consecutive British Youth Mountain bike titles and three consecutive British Youth Cyclo-Cross titles.
Being brought up in Wick, Glamorgan, she earned the nickname 'The Wick Wonder' and went on to win four junior world titles, including one at mountain bike. In 1999, at the age of 16, she became the youngest winner of the British women's road race title and between then and 2009 she won the title 10 times in 11 years.
She also won the road race for her beloved Wales at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games and at her first Olympic Games in 2004 she came fifth, but four years later she became the first Welsh athlete since three day eventer Richard Meade in 1972 to win Olympic gold when she won the road race title in Beijing. She made it a memorable year by also winning the world title.
It was not only in single day races that Nicole excelled but she also won many prestigious stage races across Europe including the Grand Boucle (the women's Tour de France in all but name) in 2006 and 2007 and the women's Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) in 2004.
Nicole was awarded the MBE in the 2009 New Year Honours list. She announced her retirement from cycling in January 2013.
As a 12-year-old she was asked on BBC television what her dreams as a cyclist were and she said: "I want to win the Tour de France and win the Olympic Road Race". She achieved both, and much more.
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HINDES, Philip
Born: 22 September 1992, Krefeld, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Olympics competed in: 1 (2012)
Olympic medals won:
2012 - Gold (Men's team sprint)
The son of a British father and German mother, Philip Hindes was born in Germany where his father was stationed in the Army.
He excelled as a rower as a youngster and won local representative honours in Germany and took part in the German national Championships. At 15 he turned to cycling - road racing at first, but then found he soon had a liking for track racing.
He represented Germany as a junior and won a bronze medal in the team sprint at the 2010 World Junior Championships. Shortly afterwards he moved to Britain and chose to ride for Great Britain with having dual citizenship, and joined the British Cycling's Olympic Academy Programme in October 2010.
He made his Great Britain debut at the 2012 World Cup in Beijing and then took part in the team sprint at the World Championships in Melbourne Later in the year he was part of the three-man British sprint team, along with Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny, that won the gold medal at London 2012. But it was Hindes who attracted the most attention of the three riders, unfortunately for the wrong reason.
In the final against France, Hindes had a bad start in the first race and came off his bike just after the start. The rules allow that after such an incident the race can be re-started. But after the race Hindes told reporters that he had done it deliberately get a re-start.
Red faced officials of British Cycling faced up to the world's media to explain that what Philip said was lost in translation because English wasn't his first language!
No action was taken and Britain won gold and Chris Hoy equalled Steve Redgrave's record of five Olympic gold medals (later to be turned into six)
Like most of the British gold medal winning athletes at London 2012 Hindes was awarded the MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list.
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HOY, Christopher Andrew "Chris"
Born: 23 March 1976, Edinburgh, Scotland
Olympics competed in: 4 (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012)
Olympic medals won:
2000 - Silver (Men's team sprint)
2004 - Gold (Men's 1000 metres time trial)
2008 - Gold (Men's sprint)
2008 - Gold (Men's team sprint)
2008 - Gold (Men's keirin)
2012 - Gold (Men's team sprint)
2012 - Gold (Men's keirin)
Sir Chris Hoy is the most successful British Olympian with six gold medals and, along with fellow cyclist Bradley Wiggins, is the most decorated British Olympic athlete in any sport with seven medals in total.
Chris started racing BMX bikes at the age of seven and by the time he was 14 he was ranked ninth in the world. He then turned his attention to track racing in 1994 and first joined the Great Britain team two years later when he was just 19. He won his first world championship medal, a silver, in the team sprint in 1999
His first Olympic medal was also a silver in the team sprint at Sydney in 2000. But two years later he won the kilo time trial and team sprint to win the first of his 11 world championship gold medals between then and 2012.
At Athens in 2004 he won his first Olympic gold in the kilo time trial. Unfortunately for him the event was dropped from the 2008 Beijing programme but not perturbed Chris turned his attention to the individual sprint, team sprint and keirin, and he won gold medals in all three events.
He became the first Briton since swimmer Henry Taylor in 1908 to win three gold medals at one Olympic Games and the first cyclist to win three golds at one Games since Marcus Hurley of the United States in 1904.
For his 2008 achievements Chris was voted that year's BBC Sports Personality of the Year - only the second cyclist after Tommy Simpson to win the award. He was also honoured with a Knighthood in the 2009 New Year Honours list.
On 'home' soil at London 2012 Chris won two more Olympic gold medals in the team sprint and keirin to take his tally to that record-breaking six. He was also honoured with being the first cyclist to carry the British flag at the opening ceremony.
Chris, nicknamed 'The Real McHoy', announced his retirement from competitive racing in April 2013 and turned his attention to his bike designing business Hoy Bikes.
As a youngster Chris was a top class rower and rowed for Scotland juniors. Now that he is retired he can often be seen relaxing on the water, and sometimes accompanied by his friend and fellow Knight and multi Olympic gold medallist Sir Steven Redgrave.
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JOHNSON, Victor Louis "Vic"
Born: 10 May 1883, Aston, Birmingham, England
Died: 23 June 1951 Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England
Olympics competed in: 1 (1908)
Olympic medals won:
1908 Gold - Cycling (660 yards sprint)
The son of a bicycle maker, Vic Johnson had been racing six years before he won his first National title, the quarter-mile in 1908. That year he followed his NCU triumph with the world amateur sprint title in Germany, when he beat team-mate Ben Jones by half a length, and two weeks before his world title success he won the 660 yards sprint gold medal at the London Olympics.
He came close to adding the Olympic 1000 metres sprint title to his collection but was ruled out following a puncture. The race was eventually declared void as the time limit had been exceeded.
Johnson had over 60 race wins in his career and at the Herne Hill Velodrome in 1909 he set three world records; at quarter-mile, three-quarter mile and one mile. His time of 28 seconds for the quarter-mile stood as a world record for 21 years and a British record for 39 years until 1948 when the NCU changed their rules. Johnson won NCU titles at quarter-mile, one mile and five miles.
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JONES, Benjamin "Ben"
Born: 2 January 1882, Leigh, Lancashire, England
Died: 20 August 1963, Johannesburg, South Africa
Olympics competed in: 1 (1908)
Olympic medals won:
1908 Gold - Cycling (5000 metres)
1908 Gold - Cycling (Team pursuit)
1908 Silver - Cycling (20 kilometres)
A Wigan miner, Ben Jones originally rode for the Wigan Bicycle Club. He competed in five events at the 1908 London Olympics and came away with the three medals to his name. It was the last time a British cyclist would win three medals at one Olympics until Bradley Wiggins equalled the feat 96 years later, and it would be exactly one hundred years after Jones' triumphs that his record of two golds at one Games would be bettered by a British cyclist when Wiggins and Chris Hoy each won three golds.
Jones won golds in the 5000 metres individual race, and also the team pursuit, along with Leon Meredith, Ernie Payne and Clarrie Kingsbury. He also won a silver medal in the 20 kilometres race, losing by inches to hia pursuit team-mate Kingsbury
Jones nearly added a fourth medal in the 1000 metres sprint.
He was one of three Britons to reach the final. Vic Johnson punctured shortly after the start and Kingsbury punctured towards the end of the race which left just Jones and Mauirice Schilles of France to race for the finish line with the Frenchman winning by inches. However, as the riders exceded the time limit of 1 minute 45 seconds for the race and it was declared void and neither received a medal. However, two days later Jones won the 5000 metre track race ahead of the Frenchman by just six inches.
In his other race, the 660 yards, Jones was eliminated in the semi-final. However, his three medals made him the most successful British cyclist at the Games.
Shortly before the 1908 Olympics Jones won the National five mile title and two weeks after the Games he finished second to Vic Johnson in the world sprint championship in Leipzig.
Jones moved to Salford Harriers and won a second National five mile title in 1910 and between 1911-14 he won four South African titles.
He went to live in London and rode for the Southwark and Putney teams before eventually emigrating to South Africa where he died in 1963.
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KENNAUGH, Peter
Born: 15 June 1989, Douglas, Isle of Man, Great Britain
Olympics competed in: 1 (2012)
Olympic medals won:
2012 - Gold (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
Like multi Tour de France stage winner Mark Cavendish, Peter Kennaugh was born on the Isle of Man and when he won gold at the 2012 Olympics he became the first Manx-born gold medallist since Sidney Swann, who was a member of Great Britain's rowing eights at the 1912 Stockholm Games.
Peter has been riding competitively since the age of six when he started out on BMX bikes. His father was a keen cyclist, hence Peter's early start in the sport.
The National Junior Road Race champion in 2007 he joined the British Cycling Olympic Academy the following year and with the rest of the squad lived and trained in Italy. He was runner-up in the 2008 Elite National Road Race Cxhampionship at the age of 19 and the following year he teamed up with Mark Christian to win his first British title, as they became the Madison champions.
Just three months after his 20th birthday Peter turned professional with the new Sky Pro Cycling team (now Team Sky) in 2009. He was one of the six original members of the team.
He turned his attention to track racing un 2010 but as a member of Team Sky he has also subsequently competed in the three major Tours - France, Spain and Italy.
At the world championships in Melbourne at the beginning of 2012 Peter was a member of the British team that won the pursuit title in a world record time and then four months later the same quartet of Kennaugh, Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas and Steven Burke won the Olympic title in yet another world record time.
Despite his Olympic triumph he described completing his first Tour de France in 2013, and helping a fellow Team Sky member (Chris Froome) retain the title, as the pinnacle of his career.
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KENNY, Jason Francis
Born: 23 March 1988, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England
Olympics competed in: 2 (2008, 2012)
Olympic medals won:
2008 - Gold (Men's team sprint)
2008 - Silver (Men's sprint)
2012 - Gold (Men's sprint)
2012 - Gold (Men's team sprint)
Born in Bolton, Jason Kenny was brought up in the Farnworth area of the town and rode for the local Go-Ride Club. In 2006, as an 18-year-old he won three world titles; keirin, individual sprint and team sprint. He was immediately catapulted into the senior squad and was a surprise selection for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
However, after some good times in practice he was selected for the team sprint with Chris Hoy and Jamie Staff and the three British riders took the gold medal. Jason also reached the individual sprint final but lost to team-mate Hoy.
After the Beijing Olympics, Jason was a member of the British team that won silver in the team sprint at four consecutive World Championships between 2009-12. However, in 2011 he also won the individual sprint title but not until the eventual winner, Gregory Bauge of France, was later stripped of the title following drug irregularities. Jason was promoted to first place.
Jason was selected for his second Olympics at London 2012 and was chosen ahead of Chris Hoy as Britain's representative in the individual sprint and this time he went one better than Beijing and won the gold medal, beating his French rival Bauge.
Jason won a third gold medal in retaining his team sprint title, with Hoy and Philip Hindes. But Jason also came away with something more than gold medals from the 2012 Games - it was announced that Kenny and fellow gold medallist Laura Trott were in a relationship.
He was honoured with the OBE in the New Year Honours list and also in 2013 he was honoured by his home town when the Bolton One Leisure Centre was renamed the Jason Kenny Leisure Centre in honour of Jason's achievements.
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KING, Danielle "Dani"
Born: 21 November 1990, Southampton, Hampshire, England
Olympics competed in: 1 (2012)
Olympic medals won:
2012 - Gold (Women's 3000 metres team pursuit)
Dani King was previously a county standard swimmer but her cycling potential was spotted during talent testing in 2005 at her school in Hamble, in her home city of Southampton. She joined the Olympic Development Programme in 2006 but her cycling career nearly came to an end before it really got started because she contracted glandular fever in 2009 when she was just 18.
But King gained inspiration from Dame Kelly Holmes, a double Olympic champion in Athens, who also had an injury-hit career, and she bounced back and in 2010 was a member of the squad that won the team pursuit title at the British Championships. Dani was then part of the team that won the European and World Championship pursuit titles in 2011 but the biggest win of her career came at the 2012 World Track Championships in Melbourne when the trio of King, Laura Trott and Joanna Rowsell won the team pursuit title and in doing so twice broke the world record.
However, that World Championship win was soon overshadowed when four months later the same trio captured the inagural Olympic team pursuit title on home soil and in doing so they broke the world record a further three times. The same trio had also broken the world record at the Track World Cup in London earlier in the year which meaqn they broke it six times in the one year.
King received an MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list for her services to cycling.
She was not the first Olympian in the King family as her father Trevor, who was a Bombardier with the Royal Artillery, is a former biathlete who competed in two Winter Olympics in 1984 and 1988.
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KINGSBURY, Clarence Brickwood "Clarrie"
Born: 3 November 1882, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England
Died: 4 March 1949, Southsea, Hampshire, England
Olympics competed in: 1 (1908)
Olympic medals won:
1908 Gold - Cycling (20 kilometres)
1908 Gold - Cycling (Team pursuit)
Clarrie Kingsbury was the winner of a National title every year from 1907 to 1912 and in between collected two gold medals at the 1908 Olympic Games in London.
He was the winner of the individual 20 kilometres race, winning by three inches from team-mate Ben Jones. This made him the first official British winner of an Olympic cycling gold medal. He then teamed up with Jones, Leon Meredith and Ernie Payne to win the team pursuit race over 1,980 yards.
Kingsbury started racing in schoolboys events in 1897 at the age of 14 and he won his first 'open' event at the age of 16. By the time his career ended he had won seven National titles in distances from a quarter-mile to 50 miles and in 1910 he won a remarkable 33 first class races from scratch.
After he retired, Kingsbury, who had been a draper, confectioner and cycle maker, ended up running a pub in his hometown of Portsmouth, believed to be the Suffolk Arms, later named Martha's, in memory of his mother, and former landlady of the establishment.
Coincidentally, Kingsbury's middle name is Brickwood, which was his mother's name before she married his father, as she was formerly married to Thomas Brickwood, of Brickwoods Brewery. When she died, Kingsbury's mother Martha left a large share of her estate, worth around £2 million in today's money, to Clarrie.
Clarrie's two daughters Leoni and Thelma were both excellent badminton players and each won the All-England singles title twice between 1932-37. In the 1934 final Leoni beat Thelma in two straight sets. Thelma also won four doubles and one mixed doubles title while Leoni also won the doubles title on one occasion.
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LANCE, Thomas Glasson "Tommy"
Born: 14 June 1891, Paddington, London, England
Died: 29 February 1976, Brighton, East Sussex, England
Olympics competed in: 1 (1920)
Olympic medals won:
1920 Gold - Cycling (2000 metres tandem sprint)
Tommy Lance teamed up with his Polytechnic Cycling Club team-mate Harry Ryan to represent Britain in the 2000 metres tandem sprint at the 1920 Antwerp Games. They went into the Olympics with confidence after they set a new British record just weeks before the Games and they had no problems disposing of the Dutch pair Frans de Vreng and Piet Ikelaar in the semi-final and the South African duo of William Smith and James Walker in the final.
Lance also took part in the individual sprint at Antwerp but was eliminated in the repechage.
Despite his Olympic success, Tommy Lance never won a British or English title.
He served in World War One and after the war he was the landlord of the Walpole Arms in Woolwich.
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MANNING, Paul Christian
Born: 6 November 1974, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England
Olympics competed in:
Olympic medals won: 3 (2000, 2004, 2008)
2000 - Bronze (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
2004 - Silver (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
2008 - Gold (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
Although born in Sutton Coldfield, Paul Manning was brought up at Burntwood near Lichfield in Staffordshire and started cycling seriously at the age of 14 when he joined the Cannock Cycling Club.
He went to Birmingham University where he graduated in 1996 with a degree in Geology. But after University he devoted all his time to cycling and it paid off as his long career yielded a full set of Olympic medals, plus three world championship and two Commonwealth Games gold medals, all on the track.
He appeared in his first Olympics at Sydney in 2000 and was a member of the pursuit squad which won the bronze medal by beating France by four seconds in the third place race. A month later, Manning and his team-mates went one better when they won the silver medal at the World Championships in Manchester.
Perhaps surprisingly, one of Paul's first successes was not on the track but in Ireland's leading road race, the Milk Ras, in 2001. Stephen Roche was the 1979 winner, so Paul was in good company in winning this prestigious race. Manning also collected the first of four National individual pursuit titles in 2001. He won it again in 2003, 2004 and 2005. He also won the National team pursuit title in 2004 and the points race the following year.
Paul also collected a second Olympic medal in 2004 when the British pursuit team won the silver medal in Athens. The Commonwealth Games of 2006 saw him complete the individual and team pursuit double and then two years later at Beijing in 2008 he eventually won that elusive Olympic gold medal when Manning, along with Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas and Bradley Wiggins tbeat Denmark by nearly seven seconds and broke their own world record which they had set in the semi-finals on their way to winnng gold.
A big fan of Birmingham City FC, Paul Manning retired at the end of the 2008 season and became part of the British Cycling coaching team. For his services to cycling Paul was awarded the MBE in the 2009 New Year Honours list and later that year was inducted into the British Cycling Hall of Fame.
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MATTHEWS, Thomas John
See 1906 Intercalated Games
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MEREDITH, Lewis Leon
Born: 2 February 1882, St Pancras, London, England
Died: 27 January 1930, Davos, Switzerland
Olympics competed in: 3 (1908, 1912, 1920)
Olympic medals won:
1908 Gold - Cycling (Team pursuit)
1912 Silver - Cycling (Team road race)
Leon Meredith began cycling in 1901 and became a member of the Paddington Cycling Club. Between 1904 and 1913 he won seven amateur motor paced world titles and was five times the English national champion at distances from five miles to 50 miles.
An exponent at all sorts of racing; sprinting, tandem- and motor-paced racing and also long distance unpaced racing.
Because if his versatility and experience, he was expected to win at least two gold medals at the 1908 London Olympics but, despite contesting four events, he won just one medal, gold in the team pursuit with colleagues Ben Jones, Clarrie Kingsbury and Ernie Payne.
Meredith competed at the Olympics four years later and won a bronze medal in the road race team event and finished fourth in the individual event after several falls. Despite the war interrupting his career, Meredith competed in the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp and finished 18th in the road race at the age of 38.
He continued racing until he was over 40 and later patented a specially bound-type of racing tyre, and established the Constrictor Tyre Company. He was an exponent of roller skating and was twice the British amateur champion. Consequently he built the Cricklewood (north London) Roller Skating Rink, and later he built the Cricklewood Dance Hall.
He was married to Cissie Pinkham, the daughter of Sir Charles Pinkham, JP and Member of Parliament for West Willesden from 1924-29.
Leon Meredith's life was cut short when he died of a heart attack while on his annual skiing holiday in Switzerland in 1930 just short of his 48th birthday.
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PAYNE, Ernest "Ernie"
Born: 23 December 1884, Worcester, Worcestershire, England
Died: 10 September 1961, Worcester, Worcestershire, England
Olympics competed in: 1 (1908)
Olympic medals won:
1908 Gold - Cycling (Team pursuit)
Ernie Payne s tarted racing in 1902 after he was spotted cycling in Boughton Park, Worcester on a bike borrowed from his brother Walter, and it was Walter, a former racing cyclist himself, who became Ernie's coach.
In his very first race at Stourbridge latr in 1902 Ernie crashed and damaged his cycle but he borrowed a replacement and went on to win the handicap event.
He joined the St. John's Cycling Club in 1903 and in his first full season he won 13 of 14 track races (and was second in the other), and it was during this spell that he earned the nickname "The Worcester Wonder". In total, Payne won more than 150 races throughout his career, including the Challenge Cup for winning the Bath Whitsun meeting in 1904. The cup weighed 14 kgs of silver and stood 4 feet (1.2 metres) tall and is believed to be the biggest ever trophy in the sporting world.
But Payne's greatest moment came in the team pursuit event over three laps of the 660 yards circuit at the 1908 Olympics when he led his team-mates Leon Meredith, Ben Jones and Clarrie Kingsbury to victory by ten seconds over the Germans. It would be Britain's first team pursuit gold medal and it would be exactly 100 years later at Beijing before Great Britain win the event again.
Ernie also competed in the 5000 metres and sprint, and in both races was eliminated at the semi-final stage.
Whilst Ernie's cycling career ended in 1910, he had been playing football at a high level since 1908 and he played for non-League Worcester City, and in the 1908-09 season he played two games for Manchester United as a stand-in for Welsh International right-winger Billy Meredith, who was away on international duty. Payne scored a goal in the 2-2 home draw with Sunderland. He was a member of the Worcester team that won the prestigious Birmingham League in 1912.
During the Great War, Ernie served as a motorcycle dispatch rider with the Guards and it was during the hostilities that his Olympic gold medal was lost while he was in France.
A carpenter throughout his career, he continued his profession after his cycling days were over. When he died in 1961, The Worcester Evening News, in their obituary for him, never mentioned his Olympic triumph.
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PENDLETON, Victoria Louise "Vicki"
Born: 24 September 1980, Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England
Olympics competed in: 3 (2004, 2008, 2012)
Olympic medals won:
2008 - Gold (Women's sprint)
2012 - Gold (Women's keirin)
2012 - Silver (Women's sprint)
The Golden Girl of British Cycling, 'Queen Victoria' Pendleton is the most successful British female Olympic cyclist with two gold medals and one silver.
One of twins, Vicki's grandparents were both keen cyclists as were her parents. Her father Max raced competitively and was a former National grass track champion.
Max had Vicki and her brother Alex, who had leukaemia as a child, racing on grass from the age of nine and it was soon apparent that Vicki could beat her brother, and other boys for that matter, as she soon started winning races. By the time she was 14 her father realised her potential and at 16 she was spotted by Marshall Thomas, the assistant national track team coach ... and the rest of the Vicki Pendleton story is history.
However, she did not dedicate herself completely to cycling at 16 but continued with her studies and left school at 18 and went to Northumbria University where she obtained a degree in Sport and Exercise Science.
She continued cycling while at University, and she even had a facility to study at the Manchester Velodrome while training at the same time. She followed her father's footsteps and won the National Grass title over 800 metres at Richmond, North Yorkshire in 1998. She retained the title in 1999 and 2000.
She turned her attention to track racing the following season and was runner-up in four events at the 2001 National Track Championships - the sprint, time trial, scratch race and points race. She also competed in her first major international competition, the European Championships in 2001 and the following year competed in the Europeans again as well as the Commonwealth Games in Manchester.
She won her first National Track titles, the sprint and time trial, in 2002 and between then and 2009 she won a total of 24 National titles, including the sprint in every one of those years.
She competed in her first Olympics at Athens in 2004 but came away empty handed after finishing sixth in the time trial and ninth in the sprint. But the following year at Los Angeles she won her first world title when she captured the individual sprint gold medal.
She won the sprint title at the Commonwealth Games at Melbourne a year later and in 2007 at the World Championships in Palma de Mallorca Vicki won a remarkable three gold medals, in the individual and team sprints, and the keirin. But those three golds were eclipsed the following year when she won two World Championship gold medals at Manchester plus the Olympic sprint gold at Beijing.
She retained her World sprint title in 2009 and 2010 and was the European team sprint and keirin champion in 2011.
Vicki won her final world title at Melbourne in April 2012 when she was again the sprint champion. It was her ninth gold medal to go with her five silver and two bronze for a total of 16 World Championship medals.
But that final World title was bettered by her performance at the Olympics on home soil later in the year.
Hoiwever, at one stage it looked as though Victoria's last Olympics were going to be a disaster when, in the team sprint with Jess Varnish the pair were disqualified in their heat against the Ukranian duo because Pendleton passed team-mate Varnish too early. They had the second fastest time of the round that would have put them into the gold medal race but in the end the were classified eighth.
Vicki put that disappointment behind her the next day to win the keirin gold medal but a few days later she fell foul of the rules again in the individual sprint but this time it didn't cost her a medal, although it did cost her the gold.
Vicki went into the sprint as the defending champion but in the final came up against her great rival Anna Meares of Australia, who had taken Vicki's world title off her in 2011.
Vicki won the first race at the London Velopark by one thousandth of a second but was relegated to second place after she left her lane in the final 200 yards of the race. The British officials complained that she was forced to leave the lane after being touched by Keares' elbow but it was all to no avail and Vicki was one race down in the best-of-three. The Australian won the second race and gained revenge for defeat by the British girl in Beijing four years earlier.
Vicki announced her retirement after that race and in her remarkable career Vicki won 38 track medals at National, European, Commonwealth, World and Olympics.
Her honours also include the OBE in the 2009 New Year Honours list and the CBE in the 2013 list. She was also The Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year and the Sports Journalists' Association Sportswoman of the Year for 2007.
After her retirement she attracted a lot of media and modelling work and was voted the sexiest women in Sport in 2012 by FHM Magazine. She also appeared in the tenth series of the popular BBC programme Strictly Come Dancing.
In 2013 she married Scott Gardner, a former sports scientist with the British Cycling coaching team, who she had been linked romantically with during the 2008 Olympics. It cost him his job at the time but he later became Vicki's personal coach.
Vicki was once asked what she did for a job and she replied: "I turn left for a living!" referring to the anti-clockwise tracks she raced on.
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PETT, William James
See 1906 Intercalated Games
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QUEALLY, Jason Paul
Born: 11 May 1970, Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England
Olympics competed in: 2 (2000, 2004)
Olympic medals won:
2000 - Gold (Men's 1000 metres time trial)
2000 - Silver (Men's team sprint)
Jason Queally hails from the pretty Staffordshire village of Great Haywood close to Cannock Chase and not far from Shugborough Hall, the family home of the late Lord Lichfield.
Before taking up cycling, Jason was a good swimmer and he represented Lancaster and British Universities at Water Polo. He left Lancaster University with a BSc in Biological Science
He only took up cycling seriously at the age of 25 because he wanted to compete in the Triathlon. However he was involved in a freak accident whilst competing at Edinburgh's Meadowbank Stadium, when an 18-inch piece of the wooden track entered his chest via his armpit and needed 70 stitches. The accident put an end to his ambition to take part in multi-person events and he turned his attention to sprint races and the kilometer time trial.
In 1998 Queally won the silver medal in the kilometre time trial at the Commonwealth Games at Kuala Lumpur just a little over two years after taking up the event. It was the first of five Commonwealth Games medals for him between then and 2005, and all five were silvers.
Queally shot to fame when he was the surprise winner of the Kilo at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. It was Britain's first gold of the Games, and he set a new Olympic record on his way to gold. The following day Jason, Chris Hoy and Craig MacLean won the silver medal in the team sprint.
Unfortunately Jason was not selected for the individual sprint at Athens four years later so he could not defend his title. He took part in the team sprint but he, along with team mates Chris Hoy and Jamie Staff were eliminated by the Germans in their first round heat.
Despite some good results in the years before the Beijing Olympics in 2008, including a team sprint gold at the 2005 World Championships in Los Angeles, Jason was not selected for the team, but he was 38 at the time. He subsequently announced his retirement but made a comeback and was part of the British pursuit squad that won the European title in Poland in 2010.
Having been part of the team that won the National sprint title in 2011 (his first National title since 2006) Jason tried to get into the team for the 2012 London Games but was not successful. However, he remained involved competitively as a pilot to the Paralympic pursuit team.
Jason was one of the original inductees into the British Cycling Hall of Fame in 2009 and was also honoured with the MBE for his services to cycling in the 2001 New Year Honours list.
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ROMERO, Rebecca Jayne
Born: 24 January 1980, Carshalton, Surrey, England
Olympics competed in: 2 (2004, 2008)
Olympic medals won:
2004 - Silver - Rowing (Women's quadruple sculls)
2008 - Gold - Cycling (Women's 3000 metres individual pursuit)
Rebecca Romero shares with Welshman Paul Radmilovic the honour of being the only two Britons to win Olympic medals in two different sports.
Radmilovic won his medals at swimming and water polo while Rebecca went from rowing to the cycling velodrome to become the 2008 Olympic pursuit champion.
Romero also shares with Roswitha Krause of East Germany the distinction of being the only two women in Olympic history to win medals at two sports. Krause won her medals at swimming and handball but unlike Romero, she never won a god medal.
The daughter of a English mother and Spanish father, Rebecca started rowing at the age of 17 with the Kingston Rowing Club. Within eight months she was on the GB Juniors squad and came second in the 1998 World Junior Championships, but the British team was disqualified for a steering infringement. She also enjoyed her first win at Henley that same year.
She won at Henley again in 1999 and the following year when still only 20 years of age she was a National champion and World Under-23 champion.
Rebecca appeared in her first Olympics at Athens in 2004 and won the silver medal in the quadruple sculls. She was also a member of the team that were overall World Cup winners and to make it a truly memorable year she won the Princess Grace Challenge Cup at Henley as a member of the Leander and London Universiy crew.
She won her first world title in 2005 and was again a member of the World Cup winning team. She suffered injury that season and during her rehabilitation she thought about a change of sport and contacted British Cycling who gave her a trial and in April 2006 she made the switch from water to wheels.
In her first ever cycling race she surprised everyone, including herself, by winning the National Time Trial title, and in December that year she won a silver medal in the UCI Track World Cup event in Moscow behind fellow Briton Wendy Houvenaghel - it was Rebecca's international cycling debut!
The 2007 season saw her win the British 3000 metres individual pursuit title and she won the pursuit silver medal at the World Track Championships. But 2008 was to be an outstanding year for her as she added to her Rowing World Championship gold medal when became a dual sport World Champion after winning the individual and team pursuit tiles at Manchester. Later in the year she became the individual Olympic pursuit champion when she beat her GB team-mate Wendy Houvenaghel by two seconds in the final. She finished 11th in the points race - the first time she had competed in the event.
Earlier on the same day that Rebecca won her gold medal, her formed quadruple sculls team won its second successive Olympic silver medal.
Rebecca was planning on retaining her pursuit title at London 2012, and also improving on her position in the points race but she was shattered when she was told that the International Cycling Federation had cut both events from the London Games.
She reverted back to road time-trialling but further changes to format and rules led to Rebecca leaving the British team in October 2011 and so it was time to carve out a third career and this time in the most testing of sports, Ironman.
Her first major event was a qualifying round for the 2012 Ironman 70.3 World Championships at Alcudia, Mallorca. Later in the year she finished sixth in Ironman UK at Bolton and qualified for the prestigious World Championships in Hawaii.
Honoured with the MBE in 2009, Rebecca left Chester University with a BSc (hons) in Sports Science and English and opened her own sports consultancy business in December 2012.
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ROWSELL, Joanna Katie
Born: 5 December 1988, Carshalton, Surrey, England
Olympics competed in: 1 (2012)
Olympic medals won:
2012 - Gold (Women's 3000 metres team pursuit)
Joanna Rowsell started racing in 2004 at the age of 15 when British Cycling came to her school to carry out testing and he was eventually deemed good enough to be taken on board. A member of the Sutton Cycling Club she won the Junior British two kilometre pursuit title in 2005 in her first full season.
She retained the title in 2006 and also came third in the senior British National Road Race Championship at the age of 17. But her turning point came in 2008 when she was the Under-23 National Road Race champion, and followed that with three World Cup wins and then crowned the season with the team pursuit title at the World Track Championships in Manchester when she partnered Wendy Houvenaghel and Rebecca Romero.
Joanna was in the trio that retained the World title in 2009 although Rebecca Romero had been replaced by Elizabeth Armitstead.
It was only a silver medal at the 2010 World Championship, but Joanna completed the individual and team Pursuit double at the National Track Championships and then, the new trio of Rowsell, Dani King and Laura Trott, won the European pursuit title in the Netherlands.
The same three girls won the World title in Melbourne in April 2012 and thus went into the London Olympics as the reigning European and World champions - and also world record holders. As such they were favourites for the Olympic title and they lived up to that by winning all three of their races in world record times and in the final beat the Americans by over five seconds.
Awarded the MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list, Joanna didn't rest on her laurels and had a spell returning to road racing and won the National Time Trial title. She also retained her European team pursuit title, and then at Cali in Colombia in 2014 she completed the individual and team pursuit double to claim her fourth and fifth World titles.
Joanna has been an inspiration to many young cyclists, but away from the track she has been an inspiration to many alopecia sufferers - something which hit her when she was nine years of age when she noticed an eyebrow was missing. It then spread to the hair on her head. Being a teenager with no hair was tough but she eventually accepted it and she now talks to fellow sufferers to help them come to terms with it.
Her younger brother Erick is also a cyclist, specialising on the road, and in 2008 was the British Junior Road Race champion. He turned professional in 2012.
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RUSHEN, Arthur
See 1906 Intercalated Games
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RYAN, Harry Edgar
Born: 21 November 1893, St Pancras, London, England
Died: 14 April 1961, Ealing, London, England
Olympics competed in: 1 (1920)
Olympic medals won:
1920 Gold - Cycling (2000 metres tandem sprint)
1920 Bronze - Cycling (sprint)
Harry Ryan was six times an English champion, four times in individual events and twice in tandem events. He won his first National title in his first full season in 1913 when he won the 25 mile title. That same year he was runner up to fellow Briton Bill Bailey in the world amateur sprint championship at Leipzig. It was to be Bailey's fourth world title.
The war seriously interrupted Ryan's career and his next national titles did not come until 1919 when he won the quarter-mile, one mile and five mile titles. He followed them with the tandem title in 1921 and 1922 with Tom Harvey but sandwiched in between was his Olympic success.
At the 1920 Antwerp Olympics he teamed up with Tommy Lance to win the tandem gold medal. They were to be Britain's last Olympic gold medallists until 1992 when Chris Boardman won the 4000 metres individual pursuit at Barcelona.
Ryan also added a bronze medal at Antwerp when he finished third behind Maurice Peteers of Holland and British team-mate Tom Johnson in the individual sprint.
Following his retirement in 1922 Harry worked in the family machine tool business, largely catering for the model toy business, which had been founded in 1824. Sadly it closed its doors in 2012.
Also after his retirement, Harry Ryan served his sport in various administrative capacities and was part of the cycling organising committee for the 1948 London Olympics when he was also the cycling team manager.
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STAFF, Jamie Alan
Born: 30 April, 1973, Ashford, Kent, England
Olympics competed in: 2 (2004, 2008)
Olympic medals won:
2008 - Gold (Men's team sprint)
Jamie Staff's first bike was a BMX and it is little surprise that he turned to that form of racing initially and based himself in California. But, it was back in Britain, at Brighton, that he became the Elite Cruiser BMX World Champion in 1996.
At the end of the 2001 season he had made his mind up that he wanted an Olympic medal and, as BMX was not part of the Olympic programme at the time, he switched to track racing and was accepted by British Cycling.
He made his international track debut at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester and won a bronze in the kilometre time trial and was a member of the England sprint team that won the silver medal. But he went one better at the World Championships at Copenhagen two months later when Staff, Chris Hoy and Craig MacLean won the world title for Britain.
Jamie won the world keirin title at Melbourne in 2004 but at the Olympics that year was disqualified in the semi-final of the same event and was also placed fifth in the team sprint after the British trio were beaten by the eventual gold medallists Germany.
Jamie won a third World Championship gold in the team sprint at Los Angeles in 2005 but despite silver and bronze medals at the Worlds and Commonwealth Games after that, Jamie's next major title was at the 2008 Beijing Oympics when Jamie, Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny won the sprint gold medal by beating the French team by half a second. Jamie recorded the fastest ever first lap in the history of the event in that final. Staff was a specialist opening lap lead-out rider and there was none better than him in the sport.
Honoured with the MBE in the 2009 New Year Honours list, Jamie announced his retirement in March 2010 after several injuries and the desire to spend more time with his family. British Cycling wanted him to come out of retirement to team up with Hoy and Kenny for the 2012 Olympics, despite being 39 at the time of the Games. But he was living in California and was enjoying life over there as coach to the sprinters on the US track team, so he refused the invitation.
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THOMAS, Geraint Howell
Born: 25 May 1986, Cardiff, Wales
Olympics competed in: 2 (2008, 2012)
Olympic medals won:
2008 - Gold (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
2012 - Gold (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
Nicknamed "G-Man", Geraint Thomas started cycling at the age of 10 at the Maindy Leisure Centre in Cardiff near his Birchgrove home. He won several events at under-14 and under-16 level, including National titles. But he first received attention when he was the World Junior Scratch Race Champion and also the winner of the junior Paris-Roubaix race in 2004 at the age of 18.
He then joined the Under-23 British Olympic Acedmy and moved to Manchester where he shared a home with Ed Clancy and Mark Cavendish. He took part in World Cup races all over the world but whilst training in Australia at the beginning of 2005 he crashed and ruptured his spleen which had to be removed.
He recovered quickly and in 2007 he turned professional and competed in the World Track Championships in Mallorca and along with Clancy, Paul Manning and Bradley Wiggins won the Team Pursuit gold medal. A few months later Geraint took part in the Tour de France, and was the youngest rider in the race at 21. He was the first Welshman to take part in the Tour since Colin Lewis 40 years earlier. Geraint was delighted to complete the three week race and was classified 140th out of 141 finishers.a
The following year Thomas, Clancy, Manning and Wiggins won the pursuit gold medal at the Beijing Olympics. They broke the world record in their heat and again in the final when they beat Denmark.
Another bad crash at the start of 2009 saw him fracture his pelvis and break a small bone in his wrist. But the season ended well with him setting a new world best mark under the new rules in the 4000 metres individual pursuit at Manchester in a World Cup event. He then he was chosen as one of the six founder members of the new Sky Pro Cycling team (now Team Sky) at the end of 2009 because of his combined road and track skills.
He led his new team home to a 1-2-3 finish in the National Road Race championship in 2010 and he then went to his second Tour de France. It was the first time since Sean Yates in 1992 that the National champion had taken part in the Tour. He finished 67th and the following year (2011) was classified a creditable 31st.
At the 2012 World Championships in Melbourne the British pursuit team beat the home favourites to win the gold medal in another world record time. But now the British team had changed. Clancy and Thomas remained but Steven Burke and Peter Kennaugh had replaced Manning and Wiggins.
Understandably this new foursome were favourites to retain the Olympic gold medal on home soil and they set the fastest time in qualifying with another world record and then broke it again in the final against their old rivals Australia as they won by nearly three seconds.
Geraint received the MBE in the 2009 New Year's Honours list for his services to cycling.
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TROTT, Laura Rebecca
Born: 24 April 1992, Harlow, Essex, England
Olympics competed in: 1 (2012)
Olympic medals won:
2012 - Gold (Women's omnium)
2012 - Gold (Women's 3000 metres team pursuit)
The omnium (*) was a new event introduced into the Olympic programme at London 2012. Very few people watching understood what was going on, and they had little clue as to how the points were worked out. But all the viewers knew was that Britain's Laura Trott's name was always at or near the top of the leaderboard and we knew she must have been doing well because of the constant cries of: "Come on Trotty" from the commentators.
And she did 'come on' as she became the first women's omnium champion, by a single point from the American Sarah Hammer.vIt was her second gold medal in just three days after 'Trotty', Dani King and Joanna Rowsell had captured the 3000 metres team pursuit title. Not bad for a girl making her Olympic debut.
Laura was born a month premature and with a collapsed lung. She was later diagnosed as asthmatic and she took up cycling when her mother started riding in an effort to lose weight. Laura and her sister joined their mother on her bike rides but Laura soon found that she had an aptitude for being on two wheels and started racing competitively as a junior.
She came third in the sprint at the Junior National Track Championships when she was 16 and the following year, 2009, she was the points race and pursuit national junior champion. She added two more junior national titles in 2010 and in 2011 was the British Under-23 road race champion and at the European Under-23 track championships, she won three gold medals in team and individual pursuit and also in the scratch race. But she bettered that with the world team pursuit title and the team pursuit and omnium titles at the senior European Championships.
Prior to the 2012 Olympics Laura had won gold medals in the team pursuit and omnium in the World Championships in Melbourne.
Since her Olympic successes, she has added two more world titles to her impressive lists of victories, taking the team pursuit title in both 2013 and 2014.
During the 2012 Olympics there was media speculation that Laura and fellow gold medallist Jason Kenny were linked romantically and Laura confirmed this during a television interview towards the end of the cycling events.
Laura was honoured with the OBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list. Her older sister Emma is a professional road race cyclist and was the 2006 British Junior Road Race champion.
(*) For those who don't know, the Omnium at the 2012 Olympics was a six-event race. The winner of each event received one point, the second placed rider two points and so on. The one with the least points at the end of the six events is declared the winner. If only you had known that during Laura Trott's ride!
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WIGGINS, Bradley Marc
Born: 28 April 1980, Ghent, Belgium
Olympics competed in: 4 (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012)
Olympic medals won:
2000 - Bronze (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
2004 - Gold (Men's 4000 metres individual pursuit)
2004 - Silver (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
2004 - Bronze (Men's madison)
2008 - Gold (Men's 4000 metres team pursuit)
2008 - Gold (Men's 4000 metres individual pursuit)
2012 - Gold (Men's individual time trial)
Bradley Wiggins has, along with his fellow Knight of the Realm Sir Chris Hoy, won a record seven cycling Olympic medals. And Hoy and Wiggins, or 'Wiggo' as he is affectionately known, are the two most decorated British medallists in all official Olympic Games. (Swimmer Henry Taylor won eight medals but three of them were in the 1906 Intercalated Games which are not recognised as Official Games by the IOC).
There was every chance Bradley would take up cycling for a living because his father, Australian-born Gary Wiggins was a professional cyclist in the 1970s and 80s and was the 1984 European Madison champion with Britain's world pursuit champion Tony Doyle.
Gary raced in Britain with the Falcon and Harry Quinn teams before joining the Belgian Marc Zeepcentrale - Superia team in 1979. He moved to Ghent with his new wife and Bradley was born there in 1980. But two years later Bradley and his English-born mother left Gary and returned to England.
Bradley first took an interest in cycling when he watched Chris Boardman in the pursuit at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Shortly after the Olympics he entered his first race and then joined the Archer Road Club, the cycling club his father had been a member of.
Bradley's first major title was the one kilometre time trial at the Junior National Track Championships at Leicester. He was just 16 at the time. At the same championships a year later he won four titles and then represented Great Britain at the Junior World Championships but failed to win a medal. However, 12 months later he was the world junior pursuit champion at the age of 18. He was also honoured with selection for the England team at the Commonwealth Games and was in the pursuit team that won the silver medal. It would be the first of his three Commonwealth Games medals and all three were silver as he came second in both the individual and team pursuit at Manchester in 2002.
Bradley went to his first Olympics at Sydney in 2000 and was in the pursuit team that beat the French to win the bronze medal.
Wiggins had a spell racing in France but couldn't settle and returned to England and late in 2002 British Cycling recruited Chris Boardman to work with Bradley and the results of their work together are there for all to see.
He entered his first Grand Tour, the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) in 2003 and that same year he won his first senior world title when he beat the Russian Alexey Markov in the individual pursuit final at the World Championships in Stuttgart.
He joined Boardman's old team, Crédit Agricole, for the 2004 season and he came away from that year's Athens Olympics Games with a complete set of medals; bronze in the Madison, silver in the team pursuit and gold in the individual pursuit when he beat Australia's Brad McGee in the final and on his way to winning gold he broke the Olympic record three times. He also became the first Briton since athlete Mary Rand in 1964 to win three medals at one Olympics.
In 2005 Bradley switched from the track to the road and in 2006, and with his new team Cofidis, he entered his first Tour de France. He returned to the track in 2007 and took part in his first World Championship for three years at Palma de Mallorca, and won gold medals in both the individual and team pursuit.
He also took part in his second Tour de France in 2007 but his Cofidis team withdrew after stage 15 when one of their riders tested positive for drugs.
A the 2008 World Championships in Manchester Bradley won three gold medals; the individual and team pursuit and the Madison with his partner Mark Cavendish, a late replacement for his regular Madison partner Rob Hayles.
At the Beijing Olympics Wiggins became the first man to successfully defend his pursuit title when he beat New Zealand's Hayden Roulston in the final. He also improved on his team pursuit silver medal four years earlier when the team of Wiggins, Ed Clancy, Paul Manning and Geraint Thomas beat Denmark in the final in a world record time. Wiggins and Cavendish were also favourites for the Madison gold medal but they finished a disappointing ninth.
Bradley decided once again that he wanted to concentrate on road racing and at the start of 2009 and Bradley and his family relocated to northern Spain where his new team Garmin-Slipstream were based.
After a series of good performances he then finished fourth overall in the 2009 Tour de France, equalling the best ever finish by a British rider but three years later, following Lance Armstrong's disqualification, Bradley was promoted to third place - Britain's first podium finish in the Tour, albeit three years after he should have stood on the podium!
At the end of the 2009 season Bradley joined the Sky Team as their new team leader, but he struggled with fitness and form in his first full season with his new team. However, the 2011 season was better and in the Tour de France he was lying sixth when he crashed with 30 kilometres to go on stage seven and left the race in an ambulance after suffering a broken collarbone. However, he soon returned to racing and competed in his first Vuelta de España (Tour of Spain) and finished third behind Sky team-mate Chris Froome in second place and the Spanish winner Juan José Cobo.
In 2012 Wiggins started off what was to be a memorable year by becoming the first Briton in the 65-year history of the Toue de Romandie to win the race. He went into the Tour de France as one if the race favourites and he did not disappoint as he finished first, three minutes 21 seconds ahead of team-mate Froome and thus he became the first ever British winner of the race in its 109-year history. Uniquely, Wiggins did something even the great Eddy Merckx could not achieve and that was win the Tour de France, Tour de Romandie, Paris-Nice and Critérium de Dauphiné in the same season.
He followed up his remarkable Tour win with his record breaking seventh Olympic medal when he won the road time trial event - Chris Hoy equalled Bradley's seven medals later in the Games. Wiggins was the first man to win the Tour de France and an Olympic gold medal in the same year.
Bradley targeted the Tour of Italy in 2013 after it was announced that Chris Froome would be the Sky race leader for the Tour de France, but Bradley's Giro ended after Stage 11 when he contracted a chest infection but, by then, he was way down the classification. He never defended his Tour de France which was won for the second consecutive year by a British rider after Froome was the overall winner.
But Bradley rounded off the year by winning the National Road Race Championship and helping Team Sky win the titke for the first time.
Bradley Wiggins has received many honours in recognition of his achievements. He received the OBE in the 2005 New Year Honbours list, the CBE in 2009 and was Knighted in 2013 - an honour he felt very humble to receive. He was also the BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2012.
Away from cycling, Bradley is a big fan of Wigan Warriors Rugby League team, and also collects records, old guitars and classic scooters.
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