SIR Chris Hoy has ventured that Bradley Wiggins' Tour de France victory ranks as the greatest achievement by a British sportsman.

Chris surely can't see the wood for the trees. His staggering collection of world titles and the finest Olympic medal haul by a Brit for a century (achieved after his previous gold medal event was dropped) elevates Hoy himself to the role of prime contender.

One has to respect a man with Hoy's credentials and we are, indeed, in awe of Wiggins – also a triple Olympic gold medallist – yet on the eve of an 11th Olympics, distance lends objective perspective to sporting achievement.

One does not even require that to appreciate that Wiggins may not even be the best rider in his team. Victory was planned and no fluke, yet but for Chris Froome's fall on stage one, and team instructions, the roles might even have been reversed.

It's evocative of F1, driving to team orders. With motor racing in mind, though, does one Tour win really upstage Jackie Stewart's three FI titles (27 wins), or the two by Jim Clark (a then record 25) and Graham Hill (triple crown of F1, Le Mans and Indy 500)?

One surely needs to demonstrate consistent success over time for elevation to the top step in the pantheon of sport.

Yes, Britain has enjoyed achievement like this before, defying the odds in events where we have neither culture or tradition. Scotland's 1980 Olympic 100 metres champion Allan Wells springs to mind. Ditto titles from Amy Williams (bob skeleton, 2010), Robin Nash and Tony Dixon (bobsleigh, 1964) and the world one-hour record from fellow cyclist Graeme Obree.

Britain boasts pioneering icons in fields of human endeavour from mountaineering to sailing and men and women who have won world titles. We won't even consider team sports, which some might argue F1 and the Tour are.

However, more than 40 Britons have won world boxing titles, including 11 Scots of whom Ken Buchanan, Jim Watt, Benny Lynch and Jackie Paterson surely rate evaluation. Golf has compelling challengers: triple Open champion Sir Henry Cotton, US and British Open winner Tony Jacklin, former Open and Masters winner Sandy Lyle, who spent 167 weeks in the world top-10. And perhaps Willie Anderson, from North Berwick, first man to win four US Opens and the only one to win three in a row, albeit more than a century ago. Any British player achieving this now might well attract the claims now made for Wiggins.

Though Daley Thompson fails to measure up for me as a person, as an all-round athlete he was unsurpassed. He held the Olympic, world, European, and Common-wealth decathlon titles simultaneously, setting four world records. He won Olympic and European gold twice, and the Common-wealth crown thrice.

Are we to discount him? Or Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile barrier? The athletics prowess of Seb Coe and Steve Ovett, who repeatedly rewrote the world middle- distance records, or Kelly Holmes with an Olympic 800m and 1500m double which none of them managed?

The nine snooker years Steven Hendry reigned as world No.1 while winning seven world crowns? Steve Redgrave's five successive Olympic titles?

Eric Liddell's 1924 Olympic 400m success will surely have its champions, yet Liddell never broke the Scottish 440-yard record set by 1908 champion Wyndham Halswelle. He won Olympic gold, silver and bronze in individual events – a record no British athlete has matched in over a century.

My ambivalence is not simply over bestowing this accolade on a rider from a sport with such a tainted history. It's unfair Wiggins should be tarnished by association when no whiff of scandal attends him. Yet his sport defies old-fashioned notions of integrity.

For me, the jury remains out, just as it would were Andy Murray to win Olympic tennis gold. As with Wiggins' triumph, it would, indeed, put him in the frame. But the greatest British sporting achievement surely needs to be more than a maverick one-off in an arena where GB achievement is alien.

We joyfully anticipate more contenders in the coming weeks.