Tour de France 2012: Bradley Wiggins takes inspiration from Cadel Evans as Team Sky leader eyes British first Wiggins feels that Evans, with two second places in the Tour as well as his victory last year, is still the obvious favourite but is happy enough to accept the mantle imposed on him by the bookies who make him 5-4 to be wearing the winners' yellow jersey in Paris, ridiculously short odds for a three-week marathon fraught with danger but is symptomatic of his commanding recent form. Cadel, for me, is the favourite and remains the man to beat. As a person I don't know him at all, only from racing, but he seems incredibly focused and professional at what he does and incredibly good at getting ready for the Tour de France. But I don't see my being labelled favourite as pressure. My recent performances have spoken volumes and I am embracing being favourite because it may never happen again. Who would have thought 10 years ago we would have a British world road race champion and a contender - the bookies favourite - for the Tour de France? What an amazing position to be in. I'm just going to continue what I have been doing since we rolled out at Paris-Nice in March. There is no reason to suppose that when we roll down the ramps in Liège for the prologue that it won't continue like that, that it will all fall apart. That 6.4km lightning fast prologue a week on Saturday looks well suited to Wiggins - twice an Olympic champion at the 4km individual pursuit on the track - and although he will play it safe if the weather conditions are adverse he intends to mount an early attempt of getting into yellow if conditions are favourable. Team Sky has virtually lived in yellow over the last year and appears to have thrived on the pressure and responsibility of being a race leader. And realistically if Wiggins is to win the Tour he needs to make every single kilometre of time-trialing in the race count in his favour. I've certainly thought about it. I'm still training a lot for that top end speed you need and it's a good course for me. The opportunity is there to take yellow straight away and what a fantastic start that would be. One of the reasons I am missing the British Nationals this weekend is that it could compromise being in the best possible shape for the prologue. We could certainly start with a bang. Wiggins happily accepts that, with the Olympics also rapidly coming into view, the next six weeks or so could be the defining period of what by any criteria has already been a stellar career which has included three Olympic gold medals and six world titles on the track and a record on the road that now stands comparison with the likes of Tom Simpson and Robert Millar. There's certainly never going to be another Olympics in my career and along with the Tour that has been the challenge this year and one of the main reasons I started the process at the Vuelta [a España] last year really. That's why I wanted to get back so quickly after my crash in the Tour. I wanted to race the Vuelta and Worlds to go into the winter in better shape and with better fitness. It's difficult not to imagine what might be sometimes, that's why we love this sport, this is what it is all about. I love the history of this race and realise what it would mean to win to win the Tour de France and that's why I have made the sacrifices I have made and put in the work I have over the last year and half. I am tying to make the best of this opportunity, its not been easy with time away from family but that's the sacrifice I have been willing to make this year. Its been difficult but we are nearly at the end of the process now. Wiggins said we would have to wait and see whether his Team Sky team-mate Mark Cavendish would go all out to claim the green jersey this year. "The final selections for the Tour are being finalised at the moment and our precise game plan and strategy," he said. I haven't seen Cav since the Tour of Romandie but I do know he is very focused towards the Olympics this year and has been putting a lot of time and effort into that goal. I don't honestly know whether going for the green jersey is part of that goal. Not that Wiggins rules anything out, on the Tour or at the Olympics. What we do best in the GB set up is putting performances together, we showed that on the track over the years, and that's what the goal is this year. As hard as I have been working, Cav has been working equally hard to achieve his goals.