Fresh off his conquest of the Tour of Britain, Bradley Wiggins (Sky) is preparing to take a shot at the individual time trial at the World Championships. Wiggins laid the foundation for his triumph on home soil by pounding the opposition into submission in the individual time trial last Tuesday and subsequently defending his lead with the outstanding help of his team-mates.

Wiggins has had a very quiet season since being compelled to abandon the Giro d’Italia due to illness, but the winner of the 2012 Tour de France is confidently coming back to the forefront. After winning the Tour of Britain, Bradley Wiggins entertains serious ambitions for the race against the clock for the World Championships in Florence and is swift in mentioning the recipe for this return to form in an interview with French sports daily L’Équipe.

"Foregoing the Tour this year was the best thing that could happen to me. That may well prove to have been a turning point," Wiggins acknowledged in Tuesday’s edition of the French newspaper.

Such judgement, however, does not mean that the Sky rider has lost his taste for or desire to compete in future Grand Tours, he stressed. Rather it was the antagonism against the Sky team that Wiggins was relieved to miss out on. Wiggins also predicted that his Sky team-mate Chris Froome could go on to win successive Tour de France titles over the coming three or four years.

"I love the Tour but I do not underestimate what it took to achieve the win. And even while I was riding the Tour, I didn’t really enjoy it (...) The general atmosphere of the Tour was bad, especially against Sky."

"Froome could win the Tour in the next three or four seasons," Wiggins added.

Wiggins acknowledged that Froome’s role as leader at Sky is largely responsible for him backing away from future Tour de France participations. "He won the Tour this year, so this is his place now and it would be wrong of me to try to take that away. The way he raced this year, he could win the next three or four seasons."

Wiggins was evasive when talking about his future Grand Tour races, but he has on previous occasions expressed his desire to do the Giro d’Italia. This year his participation in the Italian Grand Tour was destroyed by horrendous weather conditions and a subsequent chest infection, so another crack at La Corsa Rosa might be on Wiggins’ future race itinerary.