Bradley Wiggins says he is close to signing a new contract with Team Sky as he starts to focus on riding on the track at the 2016 Rio Olympics – and says he did not want to leave the team, despite reports earlier this year linking him to others including Orica-GreenEdge.
Speaking to Sky Sports News as he began his defence of the Friends Life Tour of Britain title he won 12 months ago, Wiggins said: "We are trying to structure how it will work. I never really wanted to leave this team in all honesty.
“I would never feel really comfortable anywhere else, so I would always endeavour to stay here.
"There was a lot of talk in the summer and everything else. We are just trying to iron out the detail of how it would look."
Wiggins’ focus is now turning away from stage races on the road towards the track, having made his return to the velodrome at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where England were beaten in the team pursuit final by Australia.
The 34-year-old hopes to compete in that event at Rio, and has also revealed plans to target the Hour Record, as well as Paris-Roubaix, where he finished ninth this year.
Team principal, Dave Brailsford, who helped guide Wiggins to four Olympic gold medals, has said that Sky would support Wiggins in his ambitions and given the links between British Cycling and the team, it’s unlikely that the rider would be able to align his programme to his goals in the same way elsewhere.
Details that are likely to still need to be resolved will include how to balance Wiggins’ personal aims with the demands of team sponsors, given his stature not only among cycling fans but also among the wider British public.
Just before Christmas last year, Wiggins was noticeably absent from a list of Team Sky riders – including his successor as Tour de France champion, Chris Froome – confirmed as having extended their contracts.
That gave rise to speculation that this could be his fifth and final season with the British WorldTour outfit, with Australia’s Orica-GreenEdge touted as a potential destination.
Wiggins won the Tour of California in May but missed out on a Tour de France place as Team Sky focused its efforts on Chris Froome, only for the defending champion to crash out on Stage 5.
Illness meant that the team’s back-up rider for the overall, Richie Porte, struggled in the mountains and many criticised the decision not to take the man who along with Mark Cavendish is the biggest name in British cycling to a race that after all began in Yorkshire.
He also missed the Vuelta, which he planned to use as preparation for the time trial at the world championships later this month, as a result of Froome targeting the Spanish race following his exit from the Tour.
Instead, Wiggins is now riding the Tour of Britain, and said ahead of yesterday’s start in Liverpool that he would be unlikely to target the overall in a stage race again.
8 thoughts on “Bradley Wiggins close to signing new deal with Sky”
In an interview with Sky,
In an interview with Sky, Wiggins says he loves Sky.
Plenty of chances for him to
Plenty of chances for him to win the Tour of California and Tour of Britain again! Ahem.
Really surprised by this. Maybe Wiggo has buried the hatchet with Froome. But I would have thought a new team would have offered him loads more opportunities to compete at the Grand Tours.
But perhaps this new contract leashes him and means that Sky will use him in tandem with Froome in the future…..or maybe he just knows where the bodies are buried and no one else would pay him as much as he was on at Sky.
Colin Peyresourde
That assumes he wants to ride grand tours, which I don’t think he does. He knows he won the tour on a course that favoured his skills, and which would be difficult to repeat. Riding the track in national colours is something that would be relatively limited on any other team – just ask Cavendish, I don’t think he’s happy about that one – and as we all know, winning an early season classic is something that Sky would be massively happy about.
Allez Wiggo.
notfastenough wrote: That
It rather does, but given that he wanted to ride virtually all the Grand Tours in the last two years I think he still does, regardless of what he tells Sky news corporation about riding for Sky.
Besides, who wouldn’t want to ride a Grand Tour? I know I do and I’m well passed it.
Colin Peyresourde
Me. I’d hate to ride a Grand Tour. It’s a ridiculous amount of hard work and stress on the body that, like all ‘endurance events’, is almost certainly injurious in the long term.
Wiggins might as well retire. There’s no way he has even a fraction of the drive he had in 2012, let alone the form, and his failures at every event since are slowly eroding his leg-end status. Be grateful that he peaked at *exactly* the right time, for him and for us, and provided a wonderful summer of triumphs beyond our wildest dreams. It’s laughable that he could do it again though.
Joeinpoole wrote:
Wiggins
Well he took the silver at the Worlds ITT last year, the Tour of Britain (largely due to the ITT admittedly) and had some half decent results in other events (and the mechanical on the last stage of Trentino cost him a better place).
This year he’s not doing too bad against his stated goals, bar events beyond his control – classics were quite good both as a leader (Paris-Roubaix) and domestique (for Geraint in de Ronde) and he didn’t do too bad in the Tour of California…
Now, none of those are big European Grand Tours admittedly, but to talk about “his failures at every event since” is a bit silly.
Colin Peyresourde
Perhaps I should rephrase as ‘be competitive in grand tours’ – by which I don’t mean just train hard then rock up and give it a go. I read an interview with Rod Illingworth recently and he was talking about rider discipline, specifically punctuality. He said that Brad is so precise about every little thing that he wasn’t surprised that he only ever went the whole hog for one GT, I think his words were “it must be bloody hard” [to be so focused over a sustained period].
Maybe the mental side suits him less than other riders – Lance’s focus must have been incredible, what with an annual GT to win, team to lead and systemic doping to conceal.
Besides, I think he’s probably had quite enough of the media on the GTs.
Noooooooo!
Noooooooo!