Bradley Wiggins admits Team Sky face a dilemma ahead of next year’s Tour de France with the world time trial silver medallist’s general classification ambitions hit by the expected signing of sprinter Mark Cavendish.
- Team Sky will have to balance the GC ambitions of Bradley Wiggins alongside Mark Cavendish’s green jersey defence
After climbing onto the World Championship podium in Copenhagen, Wiggins dropped the biggest hint yet that Cavendish, whose current HTC-Highroad team will disband at the end of the season, will be riding for Sky in 2012.
The 31-year-old Wiggins abandoned this year’s Tour after breaking his collar bone on stage seven but returned to finish third overall behind Spaniard Juan Jose Cobo and Team Sky team-mate Chris Froome at the Vuelta a Espana.
And now Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford faces the prospect of building a nine-rider Tour team that can fight on two fronts; working for yellow jersey contender Wiggins, while teeing up green jersey winner Cavendish for sprint finishes.
“It’s been done,” Wiggins told the Guardian. “How it would work, I have no idea. I don’t know what they’re thinking. It’s a case of it being announced first before we make plans.
“We haven’t got that far yet. I might not be in their plans, it might be all about Cav and winning the green jersey, in which case I don’t go to the Tour. I can think I can win the Tour but it still depends on their plans. I’ve given up worrying about stuff like that.”
Despite watching on television while recovering from his broken collarbone, Wiggins drew inspiration from unfancied Frenchman Thomas Voeckler’s ride to fourth and Cadel Evans’ overall victory, with the 34-year-old Australian becoming the oldest Tour winner since Henri Pelissier in 1923.
“The Tour seems more doable than ever before,” Wiggins told Reuters. “Watching the performance of Voeckler this year, Cadel was inspirational too, and I think cycling has changed so much in the last few years for the better.”
Ten days passed between the end of the Vuelta and Wiggins’ time trial ride, approximately the same gap between the final stage of the 2012 Tourand the start of the Olympic cycling programme.
- Bradley Wiggins won the Critérium du Dauphiné in June before crashing out of the Tour de France
Silver in Copenhagen showed promise that Wiggins can carry form from a three-week Grand Tour into London 2012, but the three-time Olympic track gold medallist must now decide whether to focus on the time trial or team pursuit.
He added: “We’ve got a good chance to win the gold medal in the team pursuit but obviously I want to do the Tour next year. And I want to try and win the Tour so if I try and win the Tour it’s going to jeopardise slightly winning gold in the time trial.
“[Recently-crowned world time trial champion] Tony Martin is the clear favourite and he is going to ride through the Tour with one ambition – win an Olympic gold. I’m not able to do that because I’m going for GC in the Tour. I’ve certainly got a chance to get a medal in London in the time trial but we’ve also got a strong chance of winning gold in the team pursuit.
“So for sure it’s 100 per cent the Tour, no doubt about it, and everything training towards the Tour but then obviously it’s deciding what I’ll do after the Tour, whether I go straight to the time trial and do the team pursuit or I just leave the time trial and aim for the team pursuit.
“That’s something we’ve got to sort out in the next few weeks, we have to make a decision either way. I think there’s an option to do both or dropping the time trial and doing the team pursuit. I think after yesterday and having done and finishing the Vuelta third and coming here and finishing second it’s doable.
“I can get a medal and compete in the Tour but in terms of winning the Tour then coming and winning the Olympics time trial is very, very difficult with the level Tony is at. It wasn’t like he beat me by 20 seconds – but by a minute 15.”
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