Greatest British cyclists of all-time

The last 20 years have been a golden age for British cyclists, with Olympic medals galore won in the velodrome as well as Grand Tour and World Championship success on the road.

Below we take a look at eight of the greatest British athletes to have ever competed on two wheels.

Beryl Burton

Few British athletes, let alone cyclists, have dominated their sport more than Yorkshire's own, Beryl Burton.

Born in the Halton area of Leeds, Burton was introduced to cycling by her husband, Charlie, and went on to win titles galore at national and international level on both the road and track.

Burton won more than 90 domestic titles and seven world titles, including the women's road race twice, in 1960 and 1967.

A true pioneer of women's cycling in Britain, Burton also won five rainbow jerseys in the individual pursuit in the velodrome.

Sir Bradley Wiggins

Sir Bradley Wiggins will always be remembered for his leading role in the golden sporting summer of 2012.

Wiggins became the first British winner of the Tour de France in July of that year and swiftly followed up with gold in the time trial at the 2012 Olympic Games in front of a home London crowd.

The Londoner was already a three-time Olympic champion on the track from Athens and Beijing prior to his heroics on the roads of Surrey, and he returned to the velodrome four years later to help Britain's team pursuiters win gold in Rio.

Wiggins won eight Olympic medals in all, five of them gold, to go with numerous world championship titles on the track and the time trial at the 2014 World Road Championships in Spain.

He remains the only cyclist in history to have won world and Olympic titles on both the road and on the track.

Sir Mark Cavendish

World champion on the road in 2011, few sprinters could live with Manx Missile Mark Cavendish in his pomp.

A winner of 55 Grand Tour stages, including a record 35 at the Tour de France, Cavendish enjoyed the highest of highs and plenty of lows during his career on the road, but his legacy as the greatest sprinter of all-time will endure.

Cavendish, who also was a world champion and Olympic medallist on the track, is one of only two British men - alongside Tom Simpson - to have won Milan-San Remo, one of cycling's five Monuments.

Sir Chris Hoy

A specialist track rider, Sir Chris Hoy paved the way for a generation of success in the velodrome.

A proud Scotsman, Hoy won six golds and a silver across four Olympic Games from 2000 to 2012, where he bowed out in front of a home crowd in London with gold in the team sprint and keirin.

Also a winner of multiple world titles across a number of sprint disciplines, Hoy was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2008 after winning triple gold at the Beijing Olympics that year.

He also carried the flag for Team GB at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Games in London.

Dame Laura Kenny

No British female Olympian has won more gold medals than Laura Kenny (nee Trott), who claimed five across three Games on the track.

Kenny claimed gold in the omnium and team pursuit at both London 2012 and four years later in Rio, before winning a gold alongside great friend Katie Archibald in the madison at the delayed Tokyo Games, where she also won a silver in the team pursuit.

Following her double gold in Brazil in 2016, she married fellow GB cyclist Jason Kenny.

Sir Jason Kenny

The other half of Great Britain's golden couple, Jason Kenny is the most decorated British Olympian of all-time.

A veteran of four Olympiad, Kenny won gold in the team sprint at the 2008 Games in Beijing, before coming second to team-mate Hoy in the individual event.

Kenny went one better in London four years later, winning both events, before completing a hat-trick in Rio, where he won gold in the keirin in addition to both sprint disciplines.

The Bolton rider's Olympic swansong came in Tokyo five years later, when he defended his keirin title and came second in the team sprint.

Chris Froome

Born in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Chris Froome is Britain's most successful Grand Tour cyclist by some distance.

A four-time winner of the Tour de France, double Vuelta a Espana champion and Giro d'Italia victor in 2018, only three men - Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil - have won more of cycling's biggest stage races than Froome.

While he didn't possess the coolness of Wiggins or the charisma of Cavendish, Froome was very much towards the top of a golden era for British cycling in the professional peloton.

Geraint Thomas

Welshman Geraint Thomas called time on his career after this year's Tour of Britain in front of a home crowd in Cardiff.

G, as he is known within the sport, didn't win as much as some of the other names on this list, but he will be always remembered for winning the 2018 Tour de France, where he triumphed atop the iconic Alpe d'Huez.