Former Tour de France winner Stephen Roche believes Team Sky could “lose everything” by attempting to win both the yellow and green jerseys at this year’s race.
Bradley Wiggins has made Tour de France victory his number one target in 2012, while Cavendish will attempt to defend the green jersey he won with HTC-Highroad last year before turning his attention to the Olympic road race less than a week after the Tour peloton contests the final sprint on the Champs-Elysees.
The team’s ability to juggle both riders’ ambitions will dominate discussion in the build-up to the Tour, which starts in Liege, Belgium, on June 30. T-Mobile was the last team to win both jerseys, when Jan Ullrich and Erik Zabel claimed yellow and green respectively in 1996.
But Roche said the situation represents a ‘nightmare’ for Sky’s management team, while the Irishman believes Vuelta a Espana runner-up Chris Froome represents Sky’s best chance of overall victory.
“I think [Dave] Brailsford, before Sky was launched, said that he wants to have a Tour de France winner within five years, so I reckon he could achieve that earlier than planned,” Roche, the only rider other than Eddy Merckx to claim the Triple Crown, winning the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and World Championships in 1987, told the Telegraph.
“Initially I felt that that that was just a commercial pitch because a Tour de France winner doesn’t just come along like that.
“So who’s Brailsford got in his pocket capable of winning the Tour? Wiggins? Well maybe now, but not at the time. But now we look at it differently so I think Brailsford was very courageous to come out and announce that.
“For me, though, I think Froome is the one: he’s got a great attitude, great ability, he time trials well, climbs well and recuperates very well and can last the three weeks. Ok, Bradley’s there, but he’s now targeted.
“They might, though, lose everything by targeting both. It will be very difficult for them.
He continued: “The biggest problem I see is the management. They’ve got a headache. How are they going to coordinate the sprints for Cavendish so that he’s happy he has a good lead-out? How are they going to cope with Froome and Wiggins when they can’t ride in the lead-out for Cavendish? Then Cavendish’s lead-out man can’t ride for them. It’s going to be a nightmare for the management, I wouldn’t like to be them at all.”
Wiggins and Cavendish are currently in Majorca on a Team Sky training camp, preparing to start their seasons at the Volta ao Algarve and Tour of Qatar respectively.
Both will carve out a race programme which builds towards July. For Wiggins, the 2012 Tour route features nearly 100km of time trials – one of the 31-year-old’s’ strongest disciplines, having won world silver in Copenhagen last year – but Wiggins, who also won the Criterium du Dauphine in 2011 before finishing third at the Vuelta, believes he has evolved into “more of a climber”.
“Last year proved that I’ve become much more of a complete rider,” he told the Guardian. “I’m not just a time triallist any more. I’ve become more of a climber now – who still keeps that time trial as strong as ever.
“It gives me such self-belief. I feel a different athlete. I feel a different person in a lot of ways. I feel much more professional and dedicated to my trade than I used to be. I appreciate this ability I’ve got – and don’t take it for granted any more. That fits every aspect of my life now.
“It’s making the most of the time I’ve got and not wanting to look back in five years and wishing I’d done more. This is my fourth Olympics but I’ve also realised I’m a bit of an exception. I do the road as well and the Tour comes first.
“I’ve got an opportunity that not many people have – to be the leader of Team Sky as I enter the prime years of my career. I have the potential to be up there in the Tour de France – not many people get to do that. And not many people get the chance to then compete at the Olympics a week later.”
