At the World Championships in Paris this past spring, the British Team Pursuit team was roundly defeated. The final against New Zealand acted as a wake-up call for the team that had been superior Olympic champions in London. They brought back their former, very successful coach Heiko Salzwedel, who had been working as a coach for a Swiss road rider, and then also had the advantage of yet another addition: seven years after his Olympic success in Beijing (Individual Pursuit and Team Pursuit), Bradley Wiggins, who had in the meantime also succeeded in winning the Tour de France, decided to end his career with an attempt to win another gold medal at the upcoming Rio Olympics. The European Championships in Grenchen is his first competitive match on the track since his comeback to the boards.

On Thursday night, the 35-year old Wiggins proved that he is the leader of the new British quartet, and that they are on the right course for Rio. After having kicked off with lightning speed, the British managed to distance the vociferously supported Swiss team in the final of the 4000 meter Team Pursuit. With the best time of the tournament at 3:55.243, the British beat the Swiss team coached by Daniel Gisiger with track champion Stefan Küng, by two seconds. The Swiss barely missed surpassing their Swiss record time that they set earlier in the afternoon semi-final round. For them, the silver medal, which is Gisiger’s team’s best result so far, and the culmination of their fairytale ascent. Ever since Daniel Gisiger has taken the reigns of the new Team Pursuit squad eight years ago, the team has knocked more than 20 seconds off its time.

Compared to their semi-final crew, the British made two changes to their quartet: the Olympic champion Steven Burke and Matthew Gibson, who will focus on the Scratch Race, stepped away, and then Andrew Tenant and Jonathan Dibben joined the team. “It was certainly an advantage that we could put on two fresh riders,” Wiggins said. “It was also necessary in order to beat the Swiss, who ridden all three races.”

Even more impressive was the superiority of the British Women's Team Pursuit team who once again overtook their opponents from Russia after little more than two kilometers.