BRADLEY WIGGINS

Now that my Mum has gone home, I have time for blogging; and watching the Tour de France, which started yesterday. With Contador suspended until August, and a route with fewer mountains and 100km of time trialling, the race is the most open for years. But the biggest surprise of all is that 2012 might just be the year when the winner of La Grande Boucle is a Brit.

The man in question is Bradley Wiggins, a three-time Olympic gold medallist at Athens and Beijing on the track, who then switched to road racing. That change is harder than it seems, track cycling being relatively short and without mountains. Some thought his fourth place in the 2009 Tour was just a flash in the pan. But a change in his training programme has led to some fantastic results this year, with wins at Paris-Nice, the Tour de Romandie and the Dauphine, all week-long stage races. The most satisfying thing for Wiggins has surely been beating his rivals for the Tour in these races, notably last year's winner Cadel Evans. There's a lot of psychology in cycling, and Wiggins starts the Tour with a decided edge.

And so it proved yesterday, as he blasted over the 6.4km prologue in Liege. He couldn't beat the king of this sort of thing, Fabian Cancellera, who won by seven seconds; but although the gaps weren't huge, he still took time out of the other overall contenders, Evans, Robert Gesink, Vincenzo Nibali and Denis Menchov. As one of the best at time-trialling and with a strong Sky team to support him in the mountains, Wiggins is my pick for this year's Tour.

The only doubt I have about him is his slightly weird sideburns, which are long and unfashionable. But even they are beginning to grow on me.

Walter Blotscher