Britain demands: Arise, Sir Bradley
PM supports knighthood as Wiggins eyes £20m windfall
DAVID Cameron and Nick Clegg are both backing a move to give Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins a knighthood.
The champion cyclist’s name will be put forward by the Department of Culture Media and Sport and Mr Cameron was ‘very supportive’, aides said, adding that Wiggins has ‘a very good chance’ of becoming Sir Bradley.
Meanwhile, marketing experts say Wiggins, 32, could earn £20million in the next two years on the back of his historic victory. They say he will be ‘flooded’ with offers.
Mr Cameron congratulated Wiggins on his ‘ brilliant’ win, saying it was ‘ the perfect backdrop’ to give the country a lift ahead of the Olympics.
He said: ‘I am, like everyone in the country, absolutely delighted. Bradley Wiggins has scaled one of the great heights of British sporting achievement.
‘To be the first British person in 109 years to win the Tour de France is an immense feat of physical and mental ability and aptitude. I think the whole country wants to say “well done, brilliant”.’
Wiggins already has three Olympic gold medals on the track, a feat which matches that of Sir Chris Hoy, and he is the bookies’
‘It’s what everyone wants to see’
favourites to win the London Games timetrial event on the road.
He was given an OBE in the 2005 New Year’s honours for services to cycling after he won gold, silver and bronze medals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
A senior No 10 source said: ‘He has a very good chance of getting a knighthood. The Prime Minister is very supportive.’
A source close to the Deputy Prime Minister also backed calls for the knighthood and threw support behind Wiggins to be named BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
He said: ‘Nick is certainly behind it. If he doesn’t win Sports Personality, it will be a scandal.’
Sporting honours are decided by the sport subcommittee of the Honours Committee, a panel of experts under the chairmanship of Lord Coe, the former Olympic gold medallist and chairman of the London Games organising committee.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt will put Wiggins’s name forward and it will then have to be rubber-stamped by the subcommittee. The final decision will be taken by the Honours Committee, chaired by Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood.
A Whitehall source said: ‘There is political backing and there will be strong support from the world of sport. Jeremy will make sure it happens. It’s what everyone wants.’
Fans took to Wiggins’s Facebook page to demand a knighthood.
Bob Collishe said: ‘ What a complete pleasure watching the tour this year. Arise Sir Bradley Wiggins is all I can say.’
Celia Williams wrote: ‘ You make me proud to be British, Bradley. Should be “Sir Bradley!”’
Others called for Wiggins to be given the honour of lighting the Olympic flame at Friday’s Olympic opening ceremony, ahead of the hotly tipped, five-times Olympic gold medallist Sir Steve Redgrave and legendary athletes Sir Roger Bannister, Daley Thompson and Dame Kelly Holmes.
Wiggins’s historic victory has also not gone unnoticed by marketing experts, who say he will flooded with offers to be the face of energy drinks, health foods and family lifestyle brands.
His victory in France will be a ‘passport to unlimited riches’.
Large firms who advertise in mainland Europe will be particularly keen to sign Wiggins up because of the popularity of cycling there.
PR guru Max Clifford said Wiggins’s background of an absent father with drink problems and a strong public stance against drugs only increased his value to sponsors. He said the French – who have dubbed Wiggins ‘Le Gentleman’ for his sporting behaviour – had already taken him to their hearts.
Mr Clifford said: ‘It’s an amazing achievement and of course it’s a great story, with his dad and all that went before. It’s a real triumph out of real tragedy, and we love those kind of stories.
‘The whole of Europe is at his feet. In the next couple of years we are talking £10million or £20million.’
Rupert Pratt, managing director of sponsorship firm Generate, said British cycling was ‘ the most exciting sponsorship opportunity in the UK’.
He said: ‘ This sport now has unlimited commercial potential and the Olympics will only further this.’