Team Sky Looking To Continue Bright Start

As some of you should know by now, it's been a good start for Team Sky so far as they managed to win two stages during last month's Tour Down Under in Australia. It was a fine start for the team and one that had the team's chief principal Dave Brailsford througly delighted, never mind the riders and the growing fanbase of the team.

After all, the team are in the sport to win and would have been quietley confident of a good start. That being said it's still quite impressive when any new team gets of to a good start (in any sport to be fair) and for the team to made their mark so soon is great credit to Brailsford and everyone involved with the team. The Tour Down Under was great for the team as it helped the team see just how good the team was in race conditions. There were good reports coming out of the training camp in Valencia that the team was working well and that Brailsford's target of doing well over the season was not just fighting talk.

Victory in the Cancer Council Helpline Classic in Adelaide, the prelude to the Tour was a great bonus for the team. It was a good win for the team and came on a day of great attendences around the city. It was particulary impressive given that Team Sky dominated the front of the peloton making it hard for any other moves from the opposition to evolve and come to the front.

Team HTC Columbia, a team well known for winning stages and races over the last couple of years (of course famously with Mark Cavendish over the last 2 years) could not break through. With the peloton whizzing around the circuit on the last lap, it was left to Greg Henderson to take advantage of the tremendous lead out by the team to win the stage ahead of fellow Team Sky rider Chris Sutton to claim a famous 1-2 for the team.

The Tour itself was a good experience for the team and they experienced another victory, this time on the final and sixth stage of the tour which also happened to be a 1-2 as well. Sutton this time getting the victory on the line ahead of Henderson, who finished on the podium with a derserved 3rd place in the GC. Henderson a proud Kiwi would have been delighted with his performance and I have to say the bits of highlights I saw on the tv on SkySports showed that the team looked organised and ready for a goos season. Speaking of tv, it was good to see more coverage of the sport and especially on Sky. Eurosport and ITV4 of course do great coverage of the Tour and some of the other grandtours. That being said it's important the lesser known tours get shown on tv, as not only will it keep the old fans happy but bring in newer ones further raising the profile of the sport.

Over the last couple of days, Team Sky have been competiting in the Etoile de Besseges race. This race is usually the first race of the European Season and the team's riders particulary John-Lee Augustyn, Nicolas Portal and Michael Barry all shone on the fourth stage of the race yesterday. Augustyn the talented South African is just one of the young riders on the team that British cycling fans should be keeping tabs on and along with the team today were placed well, which will no doubt please the team so early on.

Barry who was involved in the final descent on the stage with Augustyn as well as fellow Team Sky rider Nicolas Portal feels so far the team have learnt from this experience so far. "As a team we were able to test our legs on some hard climbs and the team was present at the hardest moments, so far this race has given us a chance to learn more about each other and been a real stepping stone for us to gel as a team." Augustyn by the way is the highest placed of the team's riders in 62nd place going into the final stage of the race which finishes today with a sprint finish.

Also starting today is the Tour of Qatar which marks the debut of Team Sky's marquee signing Bradley Wiggins. Qatar is probably one of the last places you'd think when you think of cycling, but has grown in popularity and the 2010 event will mark it's ninth competition. With the market in the Middle East growing since the turn of the decade it's important that cycling follows sports like football and formula 1 in having a step in the middle east and racing in Qatar is a great way to attract new sponsors and new intrests in the sport. Incidently you can catch coverage of the 6-day event on Eurosport, so it should be worth tuning in to see not just Team Sky but the other teams like Team HTC-Columbia and Lance Armstrong's RadioShack outfit.

But back to Wiggins. Wiggins and Team Sky came under fire after his signing for bullying their rivals into getting their riders with David Millar, Wiggin's team mate at Garmin and Jon Vaughters, the american's team director being critical of the team for their hard approach to sign the Olympian. Wiggins however has hit back saying "People are trying to attach a stigma to us, but it is a load of b*****s, I think there is a lot of jealousy around from certain riders because they are not in this team."

Wiggins of course is looking forward to racing in Qatar. "The expectation to win is always there with us, to stand here and say we're not that bothered would be a lie. It's a big objective for us tomorrow which will hopefully put us in good focus for the year ahead." The first stage started early this morning and it was intresting to watch as the team worked well getting the fastest time out of the other teams to win the stage.

The eight riders contesting the Tour of Qatar for Team Sky are: Kurt-Asle Arvesen, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Russell Downing, Juan Antonio Flecha, Lars-Petter Nordhaug, Ian Stannard, Geraint Thomas and Bradley Wiggins. For an outside bet look out for Sky's Hagen to do well, after all he is one of the stars of the future and will be learning all the time alongside experienced heads like Arvesen and Flecha around.

Responding to more rumours about Cavendish linking up with the team when his contract with Team HTC-Columbia Wiggins said that the move at the moment is highly unlikley. Reffering to the team ethic at Sky and the difficulty of a team managing with two elite sprinters Wiggins said that it would be difficult. "Our riders that came from Columbia came to Sky to get more of a chance for themselves, as i know that Dave Brailsford is quite keen that if Cav were to come, that there won’t be a team built solely round him."

That comment i found quite intresting and it summs up what Team Sky are about, in the fact that it's obvious that Brailsford is looking for that right balance to make the team successful. But depending on how Columbia perform this season, as Wiggins proved over the winter if a rider wants to join a team, the rider will get his move so Cavendish -> Sky shouldn't be ruled out completly. Though it's something that at the moment is highly unlikley. More from the team in a fortnight's time.

Posted by Adam Dennehey

Bradley Wiggins Signs For Team Sky

The move that had been on any British cycling fan’s lips the last fortnight or so has finally happened, as today, in London, it was announced that Bradley Wiggins has signed for the new British Pro-Cycling team, Team Sky in a four-year deal.. It’s a major move, not just for Wiggins but for Dave Brailsford, team principal of Team Sky. Brailsford has had to work with Garmin and Jonathan Vaughters, the team principal of the team in order for the move to be sanctioned. In fact, the move has only happened in the last couple of days with the UCI verifying it last night.

The 30-year-old finished fourth in this year's Tour de France, equaling the best British finish and will be aiming to better that finish on the next tour which starts in Rotterdam next July. Wiggins admitted it was hard leaving his previous team. “It was always a difficult situation trying to leave Garmin because I had a lot of friends there," Wiggins said. "There was only one team I was going to come home for and that was Sky and Dave Brailsford who helped me to my Olympic success. We want to be the best we can possibly be for whatever the goal is and next year that's the Tour de France.

"This team wants to be the biggest and best and most admired in the world, and to be there from the start is something special. It's a bit of a strange day, it has been going on for a long while since I finished fourth in the Tour de France," Wiggins added. In fact the Olympian had been aware of Brailsford forming a team after the Beijing Olympics but signed for Garmin when told that the project was still out of reach at the time.

Brailsford was thoroughly delighted that Team Sky had finally got their man claiming that, “Brad will be at home in Team Sky. It is the perfect fit and he will be a marquee rider for us. “He is an exceptional athlete - a great performer at a great age. And he will get better still. At Team Sky he can continue to develop, surrounded by some of the coaches and performance experts who have worked with him for years as part of the British Cycling set-up”.

The fact that Wiggins knows the staff and other British riders on the team is obviously a major factor in the move and it was clear to see that it’s a comfortable move for both parties as they’re so sure of each other. Wiggins is obviously a marquee signing for the team and one who, after such a great season in 2009, will be a great addition to the squad that Team Sky has. I asked Brailsford about the other riders in the team, particularly the younger riders like Edvald Boasson Hagen of Norway, Geraint Thomas of Great Britain and John Lee Augustyn of South Africa, who of course is well known for that fall he had on the descent of the Col dela Bonette in the 2008 tour.

Brailsford reply was simple. “When we started to think about the riders that we wanted on the team, it was clear that there was an opportunity to get some talented youngsters who, with the help of our team and programme, can become better riders”. Hagen is certainly a name to watch out for having tasted success on the Ghent-Wevelgem classic, the Giro d’Italia when he won a stage, and of course, when he won the Tour of Britain over the summer.

It’s good that Team Sky are picking talent from abroad as Brailsford clearly realizes that it’s not just a passport that plays its part, it’s the personality and work of a rider that counts and certainly that has proven to be the case with the riders so far signed up. There is the good mix of youth and experience in the team. Riders like Michael Barry, Kurt Asle Arvesen, and the classy Juan Antonio Flecha are riders who will not only help the team develop but get results. During the Press Conference, Brailsford commented on how the team are not just a pro cycling team but a project which is aiming to get more and more people involved with, not only the sport but keeping fit. It’s a good move for not only Sky to get involved with, but for the nation to get out and about.

With that information in mind, I asked Wiggins whether or not he believed, he believed through the Team Sky project and campaigns, whether or not, in the future there would be non-white British professional cyclists. Wiggins hoped that there would be. “You only have to look at the diversity of the UK to realise the potential of the sport and just by looking at the numbers and the areas Team Sky and British Cycling are looking to fund, that there’s a good chance we will get people from all backgrounds involved in some capacity in the sport”.

Wiggins also added that in France, there is an emerging trend of Arab/Algerian riders getting involved at amateur level and that with the attention the sport’s getting now, not just from him and the team there are doors opening up for people into cycling. It’s hard to disagree with that as you only have to look at the diversity of the nation and see the potential that Wiggins was speaking about.

With a four year deal, it’s one that Wiggins is looking to enjoy and he admitted that it could be his last contract as a rider in the sport. With ambitions of getting onto the podium in the next tour and helping the team have a successful year it’s good to see that Wiggins wants to repay British Cycling and the Olympic team by stating that he’d still like to be involved in the sport when he retires. Wiggins said “developing youngsters is something that I’d like to do, it’s all part of the Team Sky project which has the drive to get people involved in the sport and keep the future of the sport bright in the UK’.

Lastly. there was almost a sense of a full-circle for Wiggins, who emphasised to the reporters that looking back 15 years ago, it’s hard to imagine that he’d be being interviewed by the press at a top hotel in London for a press conference of this scale. At that time Wiggins was working in various hotels in London doing various odd jobs before his cycling career kicked off. Three successful Olympics later and good performances as a road cyclist have led to him being reunited with Brailsford with today’s presentation in London.

The move to Team Sky is one that should be a fitting end to a great career as a cyclist, and all eyes will certainly be on the team when the new season starts next month with the Tour Down Under. With the riders signed up so far to the team, they certainly have every right to be ambitious and target the 2010 season with the intent to be as high up as the standings as possible. As a huge cycling fan myself, i hope that that proves to be the case.

By Adam Dennehey - SportTrades Report Manager (and avid Cycling Fan!)