Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish win World Championship title

Sir Bradley Wiggins, right, lifts Mark Cavendish on the medal podium while, inset, Laura Trott celebrates her omnium victory. Picture: Getty Images

Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish were thrilled to come full circle after winning the Track Cycling World Championships Madison title in London, eight years on from their first win as a pair.

Wiggins and Cavendish won the 2008 title in Manchester before their road careers took off. Wiggins became the first British Tour de France winner in 2012, while Cavendish has won 26 Tour stages and the 2011 road race world title before returning to the track.

The pair reprised their partnership for one last time at world level and won in emphatic fashion before saluting the crowd and Wiggins kissed the track after Britain’s fifth gold of the five-day event.

Laura Trott earlier won her second in the omnium as the hosts topped the medal table.

Wiggins said: “You couldn’t have written a better script. It was like deja vu from eight years ago. We went on to conquer the world in those eight years, like Barack Obama.

“We’ve had a good term in presidency. Come back, full circle and won it again.”

Cavendish now has three world titles in the discipline and four in all, after also winning the 2005 title with Rob Hayles in Los Angeles.

Wiggins, who supported Cavendish in his road race win in 2011, has eight world titles: the road time-trial world title from 2014, plus seven on the track.

Wiggins took off his helmet to salute the crowd in celebration and Cavendish raised his arms aloft as The Boys are Back in Town played at the Lee Valley VeloPark.

Wiggins dismounted his bike and kissed the track where he set the Hour Record last June – the breadth of the four-time Olympic champion’s success is astounding – following a crowd-pleasing win.

Wiggins said: “Just to send all those people away happy – like when the [Stone] Roses played at Heaton Park in 2012, it was a good gig, wasn’t it? Everyone went home happy. It was like us two getting back together again.”

The pair scored points early on in the 200-lap (50 kilometres) race, winning three straight sprints, before taking a late lap which ensured a crash for Cavendish mattered little. The 30-year-old from the Isle of Man hit the deck inside the final ten laps as Wiggins crossed the line to seal victory.

Wiggins added: “I was like ‘cheeky little… where is he?’ I kept looking for him, thinking it had been a long turn. I didn’t realise he’d crashed. I was out of it by then, just foaming at the mouth for the last ten laps.”

Trott now has seven world titles – two from London – and a first omnium crown since 2012, when she went on to win two Olympic golds.

She has long targeted Sir Chris Hoy’s British record haul of six Olympic gold medals and moved within four of his World Championship tally of 11 with the victory.

“I love the number seven – I can retire happy now,” said Trott, who has four team pursuit world titles and won bronze in the event on Friday.

“I might be able to do four in one go, because I could do the omnium, the team pursuit, the points race and the scratch.

“It’s taken me four years to get a gold medal back in the omnium. It was just incredible.”

Jason Kenny ran out of steam after his sprint win on Saturday and finished sixth in the Keirin final, won by Germany’s Joachim Eilers.