Bradley Wiggins has admitted he had forgotten he was World Time Trial Champion, and packed his suitcase with normal time trial suits for the Tour of Qatar’s 10km TT on Tuesday.

 

“I haven’t really thought about it – I forgot about a lot of it, to be honest,” he said to Cycling Weekly. “It was the last race of the season, I was straight out of there, then after a week or two you forget about it.”

 

“My kit turned up in January, and I had all normal skinsuits in my case. I rang the team to ask if they’d forgotten – I said ‘are you aware I’m world champion, and if not, can I at least have a British champion’s skinsuit?’

 

“The world champion’s skinsuit turned up in the post last Wednesday, which was a little reminder – I hadn’t seen anything or had any training jerseys with the stripes on before then, so it will be nice to be able to wear that in a few races before April.”

 

This is one of two opportunities for Wiggins to wear the Rainbow bands before he leaves Team Sky (the other opportunity being either the Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico TTs, both of which run at the same time). But winning in his first outing as world champion wont be easy, as due to the high winds in Qatar and distance to carry bikes over, all riders race the TT on road bikes, making it more difficult.

 

“I can’t remember the last time I did an individual time trial on a road bike, so it’s hard to predict what people will do,” Wiggins added.

 

“However, I just want to put myself in the best position possible to do the best ride and see what happens. From that, if that lands me in a half decent GC spot, then I’ll try and defend it.”

 

Wiggins doesn’t seem sad that he is in his last four months at Sky, the team with whom he has achieved so much.

 

“I can see the end. I get parole in April, I’m happy about that,” he said of his departure from Sky. “It’s going into a new chapter in my life, with the Hour Record and everything. The pressure of the Tour, and weight loss, is a nice burden not to have to worry about any more.”