Ben Wiggins: Emerging from the shadow of his Olympic and Tour de France champion father at the 2023 UCI World Cycling Championships

Having the last name Wiggins in the sport of cycling adds a certain amount of expectation.

Ben Wiggins is competing for Great Britain at the World Cycling Championships at junior level, and the comparison with his father Sir Bradley Wiggins is inevitable.

“People are always going to compare me to my dad, but if you look at my junior results, compared to when he was a junior, I’m a lot better than he was,” Ben Wiggins told the Guardian.

Five Olympic gold medals, an overall Tour de France, and a World Time Trial Championships title, are just some of the results that dad Bradley Wiggins achieved during his career.

Though Ben Wiggins may have benefitted from his last name in some cases, it also means an extra pressure to perform.

“It’s more difficult to manage when it’s not going so well. Say you’ve had a few bad races, it starts – I don’t know if it’s just in my own head – but you start to think about what people are thinking or saying,” he said.

“It was difficult at the start of last season, as in my first year, I hadn’t really done anything. But now I’ve won the European title and a Nations Cup on the road. When you’re doing it yourself, you can make your own name.”

Wiggins Jr also added that there is not a lot his father can do to help him, as it has been 25 years since he last rode a junior race.

Just like his father did, Ben Wiggins dreams about representing Team GB at the Olympic Games, either on the track or on the road.

“I’d like to go to the LA Olympics (in 2028) and I imagine, as with most riders, I’ll focus on the road, but I’ll try to do both for the next few years,” the teenager concluded.

Ben Wiggins finished second at the British junior individual time trial Championships, where he came three seconds short of claiming the title.

He also competed in the men’s junior road race at the UCI Word Cycling Championships, but did not finish the race.

His junior individual time trial at the 2023 Worlds takes place on Friday (11 August).