23/07/2012 Newsround

Well done, Bradley Wiggins! Congratulations, Bradley Wiggins!

That's right, Newsround is only about one man, the amazing Bradley

Wiggins, the first British cyclist ever to win the gruelling Tour de

France. Over the next ten minutes, we'll look back at this incredible

achievement and speak to the next generation of top British cyclists.

He did it, Bradley Wiggins went from being this little boy on a

bike to this, the winner of cycling's toughest race. Yes, three

weeks and 2,000 miles later, he finally lifted his Tour De France

trophy. Many people are calling it the biggest achievement in British

sporting history. I was in Paris yesterday, soaking up the

Welcome to the Champs-Elysees in Paris, France, where one of the

greatest sporting events on the planet is about to come to an end,

and Britain's 109 You wait for victory in the Tour de France is

nearly over! As you can say, it's completely packed with people!

on, Bradley! I am very excited. This is just great, go Wiggins!

Bradley Wiggins can make history by becoming the first Brit to win the

Tour de France. Back home, or the newspapers are talking about him,

and here all you can see our Union Jacks. I have never seen so many

Brits on the Champs-Elysees so early on the last day of the tour,

they have just flooded the place, it is superb. Bradley Wiggins has

achieved at an incredible thing, but he could never be where he is

without the team. The team is made up of other riders, including Chris

Froome, who is in second place, and Mark Cavendish, both major reasons

for his success. They could have left in but chose to stick together.

It is great for British people in general, because everybody is

tackling now, it is on the up and up. Hopefully it can inspire the

nation. The crowds have been cheering all day for this moment,

the climax, it has been an amazing atmosphere, and it is getting

better and better. It is all-over, Bradley Wiggins is the champion! He

has been on the week -- on a road for three weeks, climbed the

equivalent of three Mount Everests. He will be back on the road doing

it all over again for Team GB in the London Olympics! It is one of

the biggest achievements in British sporting history. For me, it is

like, you know, in England it is football, and every child a dream

is to lift the FA Cup at Wembley or whatever. This is like my Wembley.

That looked like fun, or did you get to keep the hat? Yes, it was

amazing! Unlike some of Britain's other sporting superstars, not an

awful lot is known about Bradley Wiggins. So here's a Newsround

guide. After becoming the first ever British winner of the Tour de

France Bradley Wiggins will go down in history as a sporting legend.

But did you know, our new hero wasn't actually born in the UK but

in Belgium in a city called Ghent? He came over to England when he was

very young, though, and from an early age it didn't take a

detective to guess what he was going to end up doing. Away from

cycling, Wiggins loves his music and in particular bands like The

Jam and The Who. And it's those guys that are said to have inspired

Wiggo's incredible three-inch sideburns. I am pretty jealous!

More amazing than these, though, is the fact that despite winning the

world's biggest bike race in their own back yard, the French love

Wiggo almost as much as we do. He does many of his interviews in

fluent French, and the people there call him Le Gentleman. Well, back

off, France, he's ours! Wiggins' win in Paris topped off an

incredible decade for British cycling. Team GB have become such

masters of both track and road racing, often their only serious

competitors are each other. But this hasn't always been the case,

and it's taken a lot of hard work and money to get them this far. 20

years ago, the British cycling team came back from the 1992 Olympics

with a single gold medal to its name. There was no money in the

sport, and cycling looked and felt unloved. Fast-forward two decades,

the sport is the jewel in our Olympic crown and the envy of the

Gone are the days when athletes travelled to championships on their

own. Now they live in a world of sports science geekery, where no

stone is left unturned. Over �1m has been spent on making the bikes

more aerodynamic, and in the buildup to the 2008 Games an exact

copy of the Beijing BMX track was built in Manchester for medal hope

Shanaze Reade to practise on. National Lottery funding has

massively helped the British cause, but it was a huge clear-out of

riders and coaches back in 2001 that was really the changing point.

The 2004 Games in Athens brought Britain's first two-gold haul on

the track since 1908, with Bradley Wiggins and Chris Hoy claiming

With another 14 medals coming in Beijing, as far as the track was

concerned, Team GB were undoubtedly the best in the world. But then

came another challenge, road racing. Mark Cavendish won the green jersey

in last year's Tour de France and with Bradley's Wiggins yellow

jersey success yesterday, it seems the Brits have conquered that, too.

So the focus now returns to the Olympic Games, and nation will be

expecting the cycling team to carry on from where they left off in

China. Wiggins' win is bound to get loads

more of us loving cycling and out on our bikes. Cycling is one of the

fastest growing sports in the UK, but you don't have to go all the

way to the French mountains to get in on the action. I've been to meet

some of the kids hoping to become the next big stars, at his local

Even before Bradley Wiggins crossed the finish line this weekend, the

celebration party at his cycling club was in full swing. These guys

are part of Bradley's home cycling club, the Wigan Wheelers. But today

just like Bradley, it's back business. They're training hard so

that one day they'll be hot on his He never gives in, he tries as hard

as they can all time, which is what I want to do. We could grow to do

the same thing. Patrick, you are already won a 10 mile and a 20 mile

race, so you are a bit of an expert. Any tips for me? You just need to

keep calm and do not think about the others around you. Let's give

The over the past six months in the run-up to the Olympics, there has

been a massive increase in the number of people getting on their

bikes. At the moment 2 million people are getting on their wheels

at least OK, I'm not quite ready for the Tour de France yet, but

Bradley Wiggins' latest win will no doubt get even more people will be

99 years the Tour De France has been held, starting in 1903. Four

coloured jerseys to win in the competition. White for best young

rider, green for best sprinter, spotty for king of the mountains,

and yellow for the overall winner. 198 riders take part in the race,

of which only 153 managed to cross the finish line at the Champs

Elysees yesterday. On each stage the riders used about 8,000

calories a day. So they need to eat the equivalent of 83 bananas every

day, or 45 croissants to keep them going over the 2,173 miles of

So Bradley Wiggins made it to his historic Tour de France win, thanks

to the sporting behaviour of his British team-mates. Over on the

Newsround website today, we're asking, are you inspired by

She is growing sideburns? That is an achievement! We thought we would