Bradley Wiggins has made history by becoming the first Brit to win the Tour de France. As his team manager David Brailsford pointed out, it's a feat no one can ever achieve again. There can only be one 'first ever'.
The importance of Brailsford's guidance to Wiggins history-making trajectory is widely acknowledged. What has the cycling guru got in store next for Wiggins? The clue may lie in a recent property deal in the rural Indian countryside where Team Sky have quietly purchased training facilities. They lie in the middle of a dry, flat landscape. No decent roads or mountains nearby. Not the right location for a cycling stable. The perfect site for a kabaddi training centre. Brailsford's thinking seems clear: Wiggins can never be the first Brit to win the Tour again, but he and the Sky Team can be the first British team to win the Kabaddi World Cup.
Kabaddi is a Tamil word, apparently loosely meaning 'holding hands'. Two teams of seven face each other in what looks like a miniature tennis court with the net removed. The aim of the game is to 'raid' your opponents' side of the court, touching as many of the opposition as possible without being caught. You shout 'kabaddi' all the time while you are doing this. If a player is caught then they are out of the game.
Wiggins is clearly a supreme athlete and should have every chance of becoming the preeminent figure of the Kabaddi world. He's got the entire Asian subcontinent to take on, but once you've managed to cycle all the way round France with a hundred and fifty madmen on your tail and not get caught, it should be doable.
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