Sky TV was yesterday confirmed as name sponsor for a British Tour de France team to be run by Dave Brailsford. The multimillion pound Team Sky will be backed by the satellite broadcaster until the end of 2013 and will aim to produce a British cyclist capable of challenging for the Tour within that time.
"We are in this to win the Tour de France. It's never been done by a Briton and it's time to put the record straight," said Brailsford, who guided Britain's cyclists to eight gold medals in Beijing and was elected coach of the year for 2008. The GB cycling performance director had spoken previously of his desire to build a British pro team – a story broken by the Guardian in 2007 – but said now "it is going to become a reality".
Sky was announced as principal partner for British Cycling last June, as the squad convened before departure for Beijing, and already back an arm of the track cycling squad through Sky+HD, including the quadruple Olympic gold medallist Chris Hoy. But this is a further venture, owned by Sky itself, and could cost up to £30m over the four years.
Brailsford said the goal is to win the Tour with a "clean" British rider. "We have thought very carefully about the criteria we are looking for, how we will screen the riders. We will have a very clear screening and selection strategy. There will be no riders who have failed drugs tests."
Meetings have been held with the Tour de France organisers, Amaury Sport Organisation, to establish the criteria the team would need to meet to obtain a wild card entry to next year's race. Brailsford has also visited the Giro d'Italia organisers in Milan and met the accountants Ernst and Young, which scrutinises applications for licences for the International Cycling Union's ProTour.
The team will have a "British core" as Brailsford put it.The headquarters will be in Manchester where the Olympic squad is based – although there will also be a logistics base in Belgium - and Brailsford will continue to direct the Olympic cycling team towards 2012. He is convinced that the two projects will be mutually beneficial. Where riders without Lottery funding are involved, the team will buy in help from the Olympic cycling programme as required.
Other coaches within the Olympic cycling team will be involved, notably Performance Manager Shane Sutton – a survivor of the only British pro team ever to ride the Tour, ANC-Halfords, back in 1987 - and Rod Ellingworth, the founding father of the under-23 academy, which has produced a string of talented young cyclists who will be at the heart of the team.
Brailsford acknowledged yesterday that Team Sky will not be a solely British team. "It can't just be a meal ticket for the Britons. Getting in the team will be based on performance not on passport and if there are fewer rather than more Britons, so be it. I'm convinced we have a core group who can perform at the highest level, but in the first instance international riders will bolster the numbers."
There will, therefore, be a number of foreign signings to ensure competitiveness from day one, which is likely to come in 11 months at the Tour Down Under in Australia. Brailsford refused to speculate over possible rider names but there are obvious pointers, such as the involvement of Ellingworth, who coaches the road sprinter Mark Cavendish, winner of four stages in last year's Tour. Cavendish is in contract with the Columbia squad until 2010 but could be bought out if he wanted to jump ship.The success of the track cycling team in placing endurance riders with European professional teams means there is an obvious list of other possible candidates such as Beijing squad members Bradley Wiggins, Geraint Thomas, Ed Clancy, Jonny Bellis, Ben Swift and Steve Cummings. Wiggins and Thomas have both finished the Tour already.
Other possibles might include the Kenyan born Briton Chris Froome and the top mountain biker Liam Killeen, while the most experienced active British professional, David Millar, is currently a part-owner of the Garmin-Chipotle team, but has always been close to Brailsford.
(Source: Guardian.co.uk)
