One of the features of Dave Brailsford's British Cycling has been its unsentimental meritocracy. There seems to have been no place for laurels resting in this team. I imagine the Chris Hoy was less than thrilled to bits not to be able to defend his Sprint title in London, but hey Jason Kenny delivered the goods. Clearly Victoria Pendleton was a star, but her tensions with BC have been well reported.
Transferring this culture to team Sky has not been that straight forward, and Wiggo has been on both sides of the 'what about me?' fence.
Wiggo and Cav have an odd history. When Cav signed for Sky he must have been aware tat te no1 plan was to get a British rider onto the top step of the podium at the tour. Wiggo had been bought in at great expense to do this. Yet Cav struggled with his 2nd fiddle role in 2012, despite it being obvious from the off that working for sprint stages was somewhere down the teams priority list. Wiggo, showing himself as part of Cav's lead out train seemed to be doing his best to help his team mate. But that was never going to be enough for a man used to having a whole team riding in his service.
Wiggo and Froome highlights the real tensions with Sky's meritocracy. Wiggo is the multi gold medal winning TdF champ. But his form since last summer has stunk, and he seems to be plagued by the misfortunes that come from being short of your best. Froome, since wilting in the Vuelta, has made a strong start to the year winning several top level stage races. After months of niggling between the two over who will lead in the tour, Brailsford has now felt the need to publicly intervene and taken Froome's part. For whatever reason Wiggo had a lousy Giro, his supposed big objective for the year. All his noises about a Giro TdF double now now seem very short of the mark. So it is logical that with a tour that appears to be more suited to Froome he should be given the nod. But this is where the track and road diverge. Over months of testing in the laboratory of the velodrome I imagine it was pretty clear that Kenny should ride the sprint, and Hoy the Kerin. Who leads in the TdF is full of a wide range of uncontrollable variables. My guess is that if Wiggo gets himself into yellow whatever Sky's management say now the team will be put in his service. If he then falters on a mountain pass with Froome alongside it all goes nuclear.
Transferring this culture to team Sky has not been that straight forward, and Wiggo has been on both sides of the 'what about me?' fence.
Wiggo and Cav have an odd history. When Cav signed for Sky he must have been aware tat te no1 plan was to get a British rider onto the top step of the podium at the tour. Wiggo had been bought in at great expense to do this. Yet Cav struggled with his 2nd fiddle role in 2012, despite it being obvious from the off that working for sprint stages was somewhere down the teams priority list. Wiggo, showing himself as part of Cav's lead out train seemed to be doing his best to help his team mate. But that was never going to be enough for a man used to having a whole team riding in his service.
Wiggo and Froome highlights the real tensions with Sky's meritocracy. Wiggo is the multi gold medal winning TdF champ. But his form since last summer has stunk, and he seems to be plagued by the misfortunes that come from being short of your best. Froome, since wilting in the Vuelta, has made a strong start to the year winning several top level stage races. After months of niggling between the two over who will lead in the tour, Brailsford has now felt the need to publicly intervene and taken Froome's part. For whatever reason Wiggo had a lousy Giro, his supposed big objective for the year. All his noises about a Giro TdF double now now seem very short of the mark. So it is logical that with a tour that appears to be more suited to Froome he should be given the nod. But this is where the track and road diverge. Over months of testing in the laboratory of the velodrome I imagine it was pretty clear that Kenny should ride the sprint, and Hoy the Kerin. Who leads in the TdF is full of a wide range of uncontrollable variables. My guess is that if Wiggo gets himself into yellow whatever Sky's management say now the team will be put in his service. If he then falters on a mountain pass with Froome alongside it all goes nuclear.
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