Today is the day Bradley Wiggins has marked out as his main goal for the second part of the season. The Brit has set his sights on a world time trial championships and says that a win would mean more than any other medal due to the hard criticism he has faced during the last year.

Bradley Wiggins is one of the most accomplished bike riders in the world with a Tour de France win, three Olympic gold medals on the track, one in the time trial and victories in several big WorldTour races. Nonetheless, a win in today's world championships time trial would be more important than any of the medals he has taken so far.

When Wiggins was forced to abandon the Giro d'Italia due to illness, he faced harsh criticism from many people. While teammate Chris Froome excelled in the Tour de France, his predecessor as Tour champion was training at home and written off as a remnant from the past.

That perception fuelled Wiggins with anger and gave him the motivation to train hard for what has been singled out as his major end-of-season target, today's world time trial championships. He has meticulously prepared his assault and is now ready to show the world that no one can write off the former Tour champion.

"It'll [a win] probably mean the most of all the medals I've won," he told Cyclingnews. "A lot of people wrote me off in May so this one event will mean a lot. Through July there was a lot of anger that acted as real motivation for this one,"

He refused to compare it to his Tour de France win.

"The Tour win was different, there was a different road to that," he said. "This is coming back from other places."

Wiggins is well-prepared to reach his objective. Since he decided to focus on today's race, he has trained intensively for the kind of effort he faces later today. He has added weight to get the tight sort of power for the long, flat 57km course in Florence and has raced the Tour de Pologne, the Eneco Tour and the Tour of Britain with a single goal in mind.

"I've done three stage races in the last three months, it's all been down towards doing this," he said. "It's not something put together at the last minute. Tomorrow's the one. It's a beautiful course, there's no hiding on it, you have to concentrate on effort and that's all, and the mundaneness of it will crack people."

Wiggins is one of the most accomplished time trialists of the past decade. Last year he crushed the opposition in the Olympics and both long Tour de France time trials as well as in several WorldTour races. This autumn he has won two time trials, in Poland and in his home race last week, and he is a former Worlds silver medalist. What makes him an outstanding athlete in the discipline is his ability to suffer.

"I know what I'm capable of doing, and if that ends up being enough to win the Worlds, then great," he said. "But there's no accounting what the others can go. That's the thing I like, there's no bullshit, what you've done is out there. It hurts for 10 minutes and then you get into a different state. You go numb to the pain, and it's only after you finish that you realise how much pain you've been in."

Starting at 13.15 CEST you can find out whether Wiggins will take the coveted rainbow jersey by following our live coverage on CyclingQuotes.com/live.