Bradley Wiggins believes Chris Froome can be a future Tour de France winner and has pledged to support his Sky team-mate’s attempts to win the race.
The British Team Sky duo currently sit first and second in the general classification going into two crucial days in the Pyrenees, with Wiggins two minutes and five seconds ahead of Froome with five stages remaining.
Froome, the stronger climber of the two, has previously hinted he feels he may have to move away from Team Sky to fulfill his Tour ambitions – but Wiggins, who is on course to become the first Briton to win the race, is happy to play a support role in the future.
“He will win this race one day and I will be there to support him do that,” said Wiggins at Team Sky’s rest day press conference. “The guy is capable of winning the Tour otherwise he wouldn’t be second overall in the Tour de France.
“What we do well is that we are a close group and we have been all year. That’s why we’re in this position now. We’ve gone out there each day and proved on the road that there isn’t a problem.”
He added: “I’m part of this team and I always want to be part of this team until the end of my career and it is about the team being successful.
“I want to be part of a successful team and next year, whoever the leader of that line-up may be, I’ll be there and, as I said at the start of this year, I was the one that was given the role to lead the team at this year’s Tour de France and I took it on, I took the responsibility, and I’ve lived up to the expectations so far.”
While Froome’s brief attack on the climb of La Toussuire led to speculation about a split in the Sky camp, one rider who has ridden wholly in support of Wiggins is Mark Cavendish.
The world champion, who won stage two, has seen his sprint opportunities limited since Wiggins assumed the race lead on stage seven, with the 21-time Tour stage winner acting as a domestique, collecting water bottles from the team car and pacing the peloton over early climbs.
And Wiggins has paid tribute to his team-mate and insists he will repay the favour by setting the Manx Missile up for a four successive sprint victory on the Champs Elysees on the final stage.
“Mark has been fantastic these last two-and-a-half weeks,” said Wiggins. “He’s a great champion… an absolute gentleman.
“Obviously there is still the stage to Paris for him and we’re going to lay it down in Paris for him and try to get him the win there.
“He’s also got the Olympic road race which he’s been quite open about. That’s his main objective this year.”
