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The boys are back in town. Thin Lizzy blared out across 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:the London velodrome as 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Mark Cavendish and 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Bradley Wiggins laughed, hugged, picked each other up, shared piggybacks, and simply soaked up as much as possible of an 💙emotionally-charged evening.

Heading anti-clockwise, the duo wound back the clock over the course of 200 laps of the track, 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:winning the Madison world title just as they had done on home turf eight years ago. Like that night in Manchester in 2008, victory came thanks to a long, long lap-take late into the race, and it produced decibel counts this arena hasn't heard sincꦍe the Olympic Games four years ago.

"You couldn't have written a better script," said Wiggin⛎s. "It was like déja vu ba🅰ck to eight years ago."

This was the first time the pair had ridden the two-man track event together at elite level since the disaster that was the Beijing Olympics, where thꦇe pair could only manage ninth and Cavendish left bitter and disappointed – the only British rider to come away without a medal.

This victory, then, had a cathartic and redemptive ✱quality to it. More than that, though, it was an occasion bathed in nostalgia. Eight years. A 🅰chance to reflect on all that has happened in that time.

"When we won our first title together we hadn't won a 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Tour de France st♉age between us," Cavendish noted as he joinedꦗ Wiggins in front of the press.

"That year I won the Giro stage, wen﷽t on and won four Tour stages. The year after, you were fourꦆth in the Tour, I won another six stages, then Brad won the Tour, I won Worlds…"

"We went on to conquer the world in those eight years," said Wiggins, cutting across his partner. "Like Barack Obama, over eight years we'𓂃ve had a good term in presidency. We've come back full circle and won it again.

"To think what we've done in that eight years together, there's some iconic images – going across the Champs Élysées🧜 together. Copenhagen when he won [the Worlds] there, leading him out in those Tour stages in yellow when he was world road champion…"

After lꩵooking back at the past, Wiggins couldn't help but look to the future.

"In 50𓃲 years' time… You see those iconic images of [T🎶om] Simpson and that now, and you think what those images are going to be like. Just brilliant."

It's difficult to quantify the impact these two have had on the sport in Great Britain. The h🐽🦹oards of lycra-clad figures that now fill the countryside each weekend are a clear indication, but in 50 years' time, when the generation that has been inspired by their achievements has gone some way to emulating them, the picture will be clearer still.

Cavendish has plenty of time ahead of him to enhance his position in cycling's pantheon, and Wiggins himself still has another Olympics on the horizon, but this Madison may well have been the final time the pair will race al꧒ongside one another at any real competitive level.

༺As such, it felt very much like the end of an era, and the poignancy was not lost o🅘n them.

"It's the last international Madison we'll ride together. It might, if I don't get selected for Rio, be the last ever international competition we do together, so it's just really n🐈ice," said Cavendis𓃲h.

Though Wiggins joked he'd have to push his retirement back to make some Six-day appearances alongside Cavendish – "li♚ke the old days with Merckx and Sercu" – the pair were happy to cherish the most fitting of final chapters.

"This was like the perfect kind of close," said Cavendish, while Wiggins 💫reached for an analogy of the kind only he can muster.

"It's like when the [Stone] Roses played at Heaton Park in 2012. It was 🀅a good gig, wannit. Everyone went home happy."