Olympic Honours - My predictions were almost correct

On 10 September I mused about which Olympians and Paralympians would receive knighthoods or damehoods. It was hardly a great work of divination but it was pretty obvious that Bradley Wiggins  and Ben Ainslie would be knighted.

 Wiggins is the second most successful Olympic cyclist of all time behind Sir Chris Hoy (4 golds 1 silver and 2 bronzes over four games), victories this year in the Paris-Nice the Criterium de Dauphine and the Tour de Romandie....oh and winning the annual bike ride across France.

Ben Ainslie with his fourth consecutive gold medal and a silver won in Atlanta back in 1996.He overtook Paul Elvstrom as the most successful Olympic yachtsman of all time.

Sarah Storey won four cycling golds all of them by a country mile.With a total of 11 golds 8 silvers and 3 bronzes in swimming and cycling over six games she is Britain's most successful Paralympian.

David Brailsford is performance director of British Cycling  and David Tanner is performance director of British Rowing.Both men were instrumental in Team GB's enormous medal hauls in these sports in London and Beijing.

I thought that David Weir might be knighted after his four golds in London to go with the two goldstwo silvers and two bronzes he won at Beijing and Athens. He received a CBE but will surely be knighted if he can come close to repeating his success in Rio

Oh and Lord Coe received a Companion of Honour.

No real surprise in any of these

You wait 99 Tours for a podium place and then two turn up at once!

Well that's the 99th Tour de France over, a Tour that has seen far more interest in the UK than any of the preceding 98. And that's because Bradley Wiggins has just become the first ever British winner. If that's not enough good news, fellow Britin Chris Froome shares the podium as runner up (or should that be cyclist up?). Congratulations also to Italian Vincenzo Nibali for achieving third place. It looks as if Froome cold follow Wiggins to the Yellow jersey. I hope so


Congratulations to Mark Cavendish for winning crossing the line first on le Champs Elysees for a record fourth time.
  
Congratulations to Slovak Peter Sagan for winning the Green Jersey on his first Tour. I daresay we will be seeing rather more of him over the coming years (if you follow cycling that is).

Congratulations to Thomas Voeckler from France for winning the polka dot jersey as King of the Mountains

Congratulations to American Tejay van Garderen for winning the white jersey for young riders. He is another rider with a bright future ahead of him.

Congratulations to Chris Anker Sorensen for being the most combative rider

Congratulations especially to Jimmy Engoulvent for winning the prized Lanterne Rouge for the rider who complete the tour in last place.

Congratulations to each and every rider who finished the tour.


Wiggins won well aided to a massive extent by a superb Sky team. Froome Cavendish and the whole team can bask in the glory knowing that it was their hard work that assured victory.  People have moaned how dull this race has been. Perhaps those moaners prefer their riders to be doped up to the gills like Alberto Contador or Floyd Landis et al. Screw them.

Blody Hell (in relation to sports again - this tme cycling))

The first tour de France took place in 1904 but it wasn't until 1958, when Brian Robinson won a stage, that a Briton made even the slightest impression in the event. It wasn't until 1962 that a Briton this time Tommy Simpson, held the yellow jersey for any period. It took until 1984 for a Briton, Robert Millar,  to be croned King of the Mountains. It wasn't until last year that a Briton, Mark Cavendish took the prestigious green jersey.

But now Bradley Wiggins will lead off the final with a comfortable lead... over another briton Chris Froome....

Given that the final stage is usually a processional rather than a competitive stage, Wiggins will, barring injury or disaster, be crowned as the winner of the 99th Tour tomorrow. Despite the scandals that have rocked the Tour in recent years to win this, one of the toughest sporting competitions in any event, is a triumph.

People, especially on the comment sections of l'equipe, have knocked the tour for being boring and are convinced that had top riders like Contador or Andy Schleck competed it would have been a different story. Well Schelck was injured and Contador is currently banned for drug use so Wiggins could only compete against those who could and did compete. People have moaned about the robotic riding of Wiggins's team, Sky, but domestiques are there to support the lead rider. Don't forget that Wiggins  had already won several top races this year so he was o top form.

Over the last 15 years cycling has come fro the margins of British sport towards centre stage, particularly track cycling. Here's hoping that it stays there.