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BESANCON: File photo taken on July 09, 2012 shows Stage winner, Overall leader’s yellow jersey, British Bradley Wiggins, competing at the beginning of the 41.5 km individual time-trial and ninth stage of the 2012 Tour de cycling race starting in Arc-et-Senans and finishing in Besancon, eastern France, on July 9, 2012. (Inset) Wiggins kissing his gold medal during a press conference after winning the London 2012 Olympic Games men’s individual time trial road cycling event in London. —AFP Britain’s greatest cyclist Wiggins retires

LONDON: Bradley Wiggins announced his retirement Wiggins, nicknamed ‘Wiggo’, is Britain’s most decorat- support of my wonderful wife Cath and our amazing by Queen Elizabeth II-making him Sir Bradley-in 2013. from professional cycling yesterday, bringing the curtain ed Olympian and the only cyclist to have won world and kids. “2016 is the end of the road for this chapter, He bowed out at the Six Day of Ghent, city of his birth, down on a career that saw him become one of Britain’s Olympic gold medals on both track and road. onwards and upwards, ‘feet on the ground, head in the last month, having taken his tally of Olympic gold medals greatest sportsmen. The 36-year-old became Britain’s first His other achievements include the world track hour clouds’ kids from Kilburn don’t win Olympic Golds and to five with victory in the team pursuit at the Rio de Tour de France winner in 2012 and bows out with eight record, set in June 2015, and wearing the leader’s jersey Tour de Frances’! They do now.” Janeiro Games. But the final months of his career have Olympic medals, including five golds, and seven world in each of the three Grand Tour. He also jointly holds the been overshadowed by whispers about shady practices titles, across track and road cycling, to his name. “I have world record in the team pursuit. IRREVERENT during his time with Team Sky, which coincided with the been lucky enough to live a dream and fulfil my child- His finest hour came in 2012, when he followed up Wiggins’s statement was accompanied by a photo- most successful period of his career. hood aspiration of making a living and a career out of the Tour de France success by winning time-trial gold at the graph of his medals and former team jerseys. It was revealed in September that he obtained thera- sport I fell in love with at the age of 12,” Wiggins said in a 2012 Olympics in his home city of London. Born in Ghent, Belgium to an Australian cyclist father, peutic use exemptions for the banned substance triamci- statement on the Facebook page of his Wiggins team. “What will stick with me forever is the support and Gary, and a British mother, Linda, Wiggins was raised in nolone shortly before the 2011 and 2012 Tours de France “I’ve met my idols and ridden with and alongside the love from the public though thick and thin, all as a result Kilburn, northwest London and would become an icon of and the 2013 Giro d’Italia. best for 20 years. I have worked with the world’s best of riding a pushbike for a living,” Wiggins added. British sport. He has denied wrongdoing and there is no suggestion coaches and managers, who I will always be grateful to “2012 blew my mind and was a gas. Cycling has given His ‘mod’ sideburns and irreverent public pronounce- he has broken any rules, but UK Anti-Doping is investi- for their support.” me everything and I couldn’t have done it without the ments made him a beloved figure and he was knighted gating. — AFP Shiffrin takes second WCup GS win in two days

SEMMERING: After waiting 26 months for her second 2015, while Gut usually sits out slaloms. career World Cup win, The opening run in the morning hours was ham- needed just one more day to add the third. pered by strong winds and snowfall, but conditions Yesterday, the American earned her second GS win in even got worse in the afternoon. two days. Her only previous victory in the discipline was “It was so tough. I didn’t think I was going to see the in October 2014 - at the season-opening race in another green light at the end,” said Worley, who briefly led the Austrian resort, Soelden. competition before Shiffrin had her final run. “It was so The victory raised her total of World Cup wins to 25, bumpy and you couldn’t see anything.” with 22 coming in her favorite slalom discipline. Among Worley’s French teammate Taina Barioz had a nasty active skiers, only American teammate Lindsey Vonn, crash and appeared to have hurt her left lower leg, but who is currently recovering from a broken arm, has won Shiffrin said conditions were still suitable for a GS race. more races - 76. “Outside the track it might have been pretty danger- In dense snowfall, Shiffrin built on a narrow first-run ous because there is so much snow but in the track it is lead to beat 2013 world champion Tessa Worley of OK,” Shiffrin said. Rebensburg, who injured her knee in France by 0.15 seconds, while 2010 Olympic champion the off-season, dropped from second after the first run of Germany was 0.18 back in third to third but said she was still satisfied with getting her for her first podium finish of the season. first top-three finish since winning the season-ending “It was a really big fight,” Shiffrin said. “It was tough GS in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in March. “Basically I am because you could feel your skis like stopping and very happy to be on the podium but I am also a bit going, stopping and going. And I thought, ‘This is slow, angry with myself as I didn’t ski the final part too well,” it has to be.’” the German said. “It was brutally difficult and I held back Shiffrin and Worley also finished 1-2 in Tuesday’s GS a bit.” on the same course. Worley won the previous two GS Just like at the race the day before, Shiffrin took a races in Killington, Vermont, and , Italy, and slim lead in the opening run. “It was fun again,” said now leads Shiffrin by 35 points in the discipline stand- Shiffrin, who wore bib No. 6 after Tuesday’s win had ings. earned her a place among the seven highest-ranked GS Shiffrin extended her lead in the overall World Cup skiers, who get the favorable start numbers one to sev- standings to 115 points over defending champion Lara en. Gut of Switzerland, who finished sixth in yesterday’s “It was a good day to get into the top seven. I had a race. nice track so it wasn’t too bad. Actually they did a really The three-day event in Austria ends with a floodlit good job cleaning up the track,” said Shiffrin, referring slalom race on Thursday, giving Shiffrin an opportunity to a legion of course workers who moved fresh snow off SEMMERING: United States’s Mikaela Shiffrin, center, winner of an alpine ski, women’s World Cup Giant Slalom, to further strengthen her lead. The Olympic champion the race line in the hours before the start, and again celebrates on the podium with second-placed France’s Tessa Worley, left, and third-placed Germany’s Viktoria has won all 11 slaloms she competed in since February before the final run — AP Rebensburg, in Semmering, Austria, yesterday. — AP