Wiggins enjoys his golden moment

Bradley Wiggins won the men's 4km individual pursuit to capture Britain's first gold medal at the world track championships in Stuttgart last night.

Wiggins set a time of 4min 18.576sec to finish almost a second faster than Australia's Luke Roberts, who clocked in at 4:19.306.

"It was a close race and I didn't know I'd won until I looked up at the scoreboard and saw the times," said Wiggins.

The new champion was behind for most of the race but kept his cool and rode strongly right to the end as Roberts faded in the final two laps.

"After the qualification rounds I knew Luke would go hard and it would be a head-to-head race," he said. "Doing stage races like the Giro d'Italia takes your pain tolerance to a different level."

Wiggins will be a key rider in Britain's bid for gold in the men's 4km team pursuit, which starts today.