Bradley Wiggins, the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France
With two stage victories and fourteen days in the yellow jersey, Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to secure an overall victory at the Tour de France.
The cyclist succeeded at the Individual Time Trial stage 9 and stage 19 of the French race and was truly unstoppable during the 2012 edition of the three-week race.
The 32-year-old took a total time of 87 hours, 34 minutes and 47 seconds in a course of three weeks and secured his first overall victory at the French race.
His team-mate and compatriot Christopher Froome finished 3 minutes and 21 seconds behind at the second position, with Vincenzo Nibali of Team Liquigas-Cannondale finishing at the third spot.
Mark Cavendish wins the final stage of the race and doubled the joy for Team Sky after bagging his third stage win at the race.
"I've had 24 hours for this to soak in and today we were just on a mission to finish the job off with Cav. So job done and what a way for him to finish it off. I’m still buzzing from the Champs-Elysees".
"I've got to get used to going into the history books now, but I’m just trying to take everything in today first".
"It’s very surreal at the moment because this type of things [usually] happens to other people. You never imagine it happening to yourself," Bradley concluded. "It’s incredible what we’ve achieved today – what a team".
Peter Sagan won the point classifications with a total number of 421 UCI points while Andre Greipel, Matthew Harley Goss, Mark Cavendish and Edvald Boasson Hagen holding the next four positions with 280, 268, 220 and160 points respectively.
Thomas Voeckler, Fredrik Kessiakoff, Chris Anker Sorensen, Pierre Rolland and Alejandro Valverde were the top five riders after the final mountains classifications.
Tejay van Garderen, Thibaut Pinot, Steven Kruijswijk, Rein Taaramae and Gorka Izagirre Insausti achieved the top five young rider classification points.
Top ten final general classifications cyclists after the Tour de France 2012 are as below,
1
Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling
87:34:47
2
Christopher Froome (GBr) Sky Procycling
0:03:21
3
Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale
0:06:19
4
Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Lotto Belisol Team
0:10:15
5
Tejay van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team
0:11:04
6
Haimar Zubeldia Agirre (Spa) RadioShack-Nissan
0:15:41
7
Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team
0:15:49
8
Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar
0:16:26
9
Janez Brajkovic (Slo) Astana Pro Team
0:16:33
10
Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ-Big Mat
0:17:17
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