banned for two weeks. Cavendish was then brought in as his replacement. At around halfway through the race they appeared to be out of contention, with their closest rivals all gaining a lap; but with 35 laps left to race, Wiggins launched an attack which helped them reach the field ten laps later, taking the lead, due to their superior points they had collected in the sprints. They held on to win the gold medal, finishing with 19 points, ahead of Germany on 13. Wiggins then rode the Tour de Romandie and the Giro d'Italia, as preparation for the Olympics in August. At the Giro he was part of the lead-out train that helped Cavendish win two stages. Wiggins came fourth in the final stage's -long time trial in Milan, six seconds behind teammate Marco Pinotti, finishing the race in 134th place, three hours, one minute and 39 seconds down on overall winner Alberto Contador of . At the Olympics he began the defence of his title in the individual pursuit, qualifying with a time of four minutes and 15.031 seconds, breaking his own Olympic record from 2004. In the semi-final he beat Russia's Alexander Serov, before taking gold in the final against Hayden Roulston of New Zealand, becoming the first rider to defend an Olympic pursuit title successfully. He was a member of the team pursuit that broke the world record in the heats with a time of three minutes and 55.202 seconds. The following day, the team won the gold medal, beating Denmark by 6.7 seconds with another new world record of three minutes and 53.314 seconds, averaging a speed of . He paired with Cavendish in the Madison, and as the reigning world champions, they were favourites for the gold medal, but they only finished ninth. Cavendish felt that Wiggins had not performed to the best of his ability in the Madison. In September Wiggins joined the American team for the 2009 season. On 14 December he came ninth in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, with 5,633 votes, and was a member of the British cycling team that won the Team of the Year Award. On 31 December he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours. 2009: Tour de France breakthrough Wiggins switched his focus to road and moved with his family to the