The medals won and presented, Bradley Wiggins was sitting in the interview room shooting the breeze with some journalists he knew when the Chinese presenter of the press conference announced that everyone could ask questions of the “Champagne” and it seemed a pretty astute slip of the tongue. By that stage the second night of the track at the Beijing Olympics and already the Great Britain cycling team were guaranteed 11 medals.

Wiggins, though, is more salt of the London earth than Champagne country and he made a little statement by way of an introduction. “For us really,” he said, “it’s just getting better and better for Team GB, we’re just pissin’ all over it to be honest, if we’re being frank. And that’s just a great position to be in.”

Pissin’ all over it? It was the Olympics the young man was speaking of and more remarkable than the outrageous nature of the observation was the truth contained therein. So dominant have the GB team been through two days of track competition that you look and wonder where the other teams have gone - the Aussies, the Americans, the Russians, the French, the Japanese?

Wiggins had epitomised that dominance earlier in the evening when comfortably winning his second consecutive gold medal in the Olympic pursuit final. It wasn’t simply that he dealt comfortably with the early speed of New Zealander Hayden Roulston in the 4,000m pursuit but that he raced not just to win one gold medal but to improve his chances of winning two or three golds at these Olympics. “ W e w e n t w i t h a schedule that we didn’t think Hayden could really do,” said Wiggins. “You never underestimate your opponent and I’ve known him for a long time and he has a lot of potential. But I had a job to do and there was going to be no chasing a world record. I knew if I did the job he would die in the last kilometre and he did.”

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That touches on the level of organisation that is now routine in the cycling squad, and part of it is analysis of the opposition and working out what each opponent is likely to do. Wiggins is a professional with the trade team Colombia but in his career in professional road racing he has never encountered a team as well organised and as motivated as the GB squad.

“I just think Dave Brailsford has put together a fantastic team,” he said. “Shane Sutton has all the experience, Steve Peters has worked with nutters in prisons and Chris Boardman has won an Olympic gold medal. They are the management team and they have created something that is fantastic right across the board.”

Wiggins has the kind of honesty and openness that was always going to appeal to Peters and they have worked well together. Even though he won the individual pursuit gold in Athens four years ago, that Olympic experience wasn’t entirely happy for the then 23-year-old. The scars from that experience have healed but you could still see them in the rider’s relatively restrained reaction to victory.

Someone asked him about it and Wiggins, of course, told the story. “I don’t do emotion any more,” he said and was only half-joking. “Athens nearly destroyed me and I paid the consequences for that afterwards. I’ve worked with Steve for a year or a year-and-a-half and got to the point where I actually enjoy my sport now.

“I don’t get so hyped up any more, feeling that my life depends upon it, not knowing what I’m going to do if I don’t win. That’s exactly how I was in Athens four years ago, so it was really businesslike today and about getting the job done.”

Four years ago in Athens, Wiggins faced the Australian Bradley McGee, who had taken the individual pursuit to a new level, and McGee was also the athlete to whom the young Englishman looked up to. But he beat the Australian, took the gold medal and you wondered what bad consequences there could have been?

“Back then I was a mature athlete but an immature person,” he said. “To win the Olympics at 23 was massive.

Once it was over, I was in such a pent-up emotional state, it had taken so much out of me mentally, I was in floods of tears and I still had to get up mentally for the team pursuit and I didn’t want to do that. I went through the motions in that race, selfishly, because they made the final and I wanted another medal.

“I just basically underperformed in the final and I didn’t give a monkey’s to be honest. After the team pursuit, I went into Athens with my wife when we had a day off and I really just wanted to go home. I had won my gold medal, had done exactly what I wanted to do and I didn’t want to get up for another event. That race t o o k s o m u c h o u t o f m e emotionally. I then tried to get up for the Madison. It was a case of, ‘okay, get up for it, enjoy it’, but it wasn’t right. We were the strongest team in the Madison four years ago and we came away with the bronze. After Athens, I had months off the bike, lived it up and [to know the rest] you’ll have to read the book.”

So, older and wiser, Wiggins didn’t allow himself to get too wrapped up in the emotion of winning his second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the individual pursuit. He has come to Beijing as Bradley Wiggins, member of the GB team, and he means to respect that. The boy laid bare by that first gold in Athens has grown up and though he’s lost none of that quirky openness, he’s taken on the responsibilities of the team man.

“I’ve enjoyed winning here this evening, getting to the top of that rostrum but I’m racing with the boys tomorrow [in the team sprint], so it’s back to the village and plenty of rest. This was phase one of three phases and now we go on for the next one. I won three gold medals at the Worlds last March and I came here to try and win three gold medals.”

Perhaps the most revealing moment came before the presentation of the medals for the pursuit. Wiggins sat with his lesser-known teammate Steven Burke, who had performed brilliantly to leave his Russian opponent Alexei Markov a long way behind in the race for the bronze medal. As they waited, Wiggins put his arm round Burke, then patted him on the leg and kept telling him how well he had done. Burke seemed almost embarrassed by the attention, but at the same time it was clear he was enjoying it. Their giddiness and Wiggins’ eagerness to amuse his young compatriot told us much about the togetherness of what will be the country’s most successful team in Beijing.