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Tour de France in five years says ONE Pro Cycling's Matt Prior

"A realistic target" says England cricket star ahead of today's launch...

England cricketer Matt Prior has big aims for his new  ONE Pro Cycling team which launches tonight. The squad is starting out on the lowest rung of the professional cycling ladder as a Continental team, but Prior says it's a "realistic target" for the team to ride the Tour de France within five years.

Prior's team launches at London's Millbank, coincidentally — or perhaps not — the venue for Team Sky's launch five years ago. There was scepticism back then about Dave Brailsford aim to win the Tour de France within five years, but after Sky's success Prior's plan of riding the Tour within five years seems quite achievable.

He's confident it can be done. Talking to The Telegraph's Tom Cary, Prior said: “I am hugely serious about this. I do think that five years is a realistic target. A year in sport is a long time. And actually you have to look to keep improving. There is no room for stagnating. The minute you become comfortable you get lazy.”

At just 32, Prior should be too young to switch from a successful cricket career to managing a cycling team, but a disastrous ankle injury — a torn Achilles tendon — has sidelined him for the moment, and perhaps permanently.

"I’m still committed to coming back and playing cricket, but I had a massive operation. I don’t think people appreciate quite how bad my injury was,” he said.

If he does manage to return to cricket, he believes he'll be able to combine playing with managing ONE Pro Cycling. His visibility as an England cricketer won't hurt the team's visibility either.

He said: "From the profile side of things, the better I do [in cricket] the better it would be for the team. But hopefully we get to a place where ONE Pro has a profile of its own. I would love it if people said, 'That is ONE Pro Cycling.’ Not, 'That is Matt Prior’s team.’ As I said before, this is not an ego trip.”

Perhaps someone's told Prior about the history of British cycling teams. Riders and the media have been seduced by under-prepared teams driven by ego and hopeless over-optimism, like ANC-Halfords and the Linda McCartney team.

Prior is determined to emphasise this is not the case with his squad.

"You have some guys who set up teams because they quite like the idea of riding with pro cyclists, taking them to their mate’s coffee shop or whatever," he said. "That is not what I am doing..

“What is my role exactly? Am I just a name to sell it or whatever? Not at all. I am the CEO of this company and like any CEO of any company, that is the amount of involvement I will have.

"I am involved in every decision, from clothing to equipment to staff. Believe me, I am hugely serious about this.”

Serious enough to be looking at that other team that launched in Millbank five years ago, planning to follow their path and earn a place in the public heart alongside them.

“Of course,” he says. “That is our ambition. We believe the market is there. But I definitely don’t want headlines saying, 'Matt Prior says ONE Pro can take Sky down’ because that is not what we are trying to do.

"What they’ve done is set a precedent, not just for other cycling teams but other sports teams.

"We know where we’re at. We’re not claiming to be anything we’re not. But with ambition comes dreams. We want to sign the top riders. We want to compete in the top races.

"Why wouldn’t you want to become as big as you can possibly be?”

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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5 comments

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Beefy | 9 years ago
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Ouch!! Torn Achilles, had a similar problem having it stitched back together at 16, best of luck with injury and hope to see you in the tour soon

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gogsa | 9 years ago
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Good luck to them all. I met him at Sussex CC, he spent 2 hours after the match signing all the autographs and chatting to kids and adults alike, like he had known them for years. Top top bloke! Monty Pannesar on the other hand ...

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Stumps | 9 years ago
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notfastenough - was that a play on words ?

Good luck to the guy, i met him once at Durham CCC and he was spot on, a really nice bloke.

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notfastenough | 9 years ago
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Sounds cool. One to keep an eye on.

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DanTe | 9 years ago
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And good luck to him I say!
If he shows the talent, battle and determination as a Cycling CEO as he did behind and infront of the stumps, then they'll do well.
Great cricketer!
If it's true and he didn't get on with that prize prat pietersen then he's probably a decent guy with his head screwed on.
He should also know what it takes to build a successful team.

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