Brailsford turns up heat on UCI
Team Sky head hits out at ‘biased’ Lappartient Sagan wins second stage and takes yellow jersey
Another sweltering day saw tempers flare as well as temperatures, with Sir Dave Brailsford getting particularly hot under the collar.
Team Sky’s principal launched a verbal broadside on David Lappartient, the UCI president, of which Napoleon Bonaparte – founder of La-roche-sur-yon in 1804 – would have been proud, accusing the head of cycling’s world governing body of having “a local French mayor kind of mentality”, of failing to understand his responsibilities as president, and of having adopted a “biased” and “nationalistic” view on Chris Froome’s salbutamol case.
Team Sky are already unpopular with many French fans, given their stranglehold of this race in recent years. So having a go at the newlyelected French president of cycling’s world governing body was a bold move.
But it was a calculated one. With Froome having been cleared of any wrongdoing in the salbutamol affair, Sky have adopted a noticeably more aggressive and confident tone in re- cent days. They are trying to get back on the front foot, having spent months fending off criticism – some of it from Lappartient, who effectively accused Sky of cheating.
On the bike, despite Froome’s fall and loss of time on stage one, they are also about to go on the attack. Specifically in today’s team time trial, which Sky have high hopes of winning. If they do, today could well end with Geraint Thomas – currently seventh in the general classification, 15 seconds off the lead – in the yellow jersey.
“That would be a nice bonus,” said the Welshman, who not only stayed upright in yesterday’s chaotic finale but also won a bonus sprint second earlier in the day.
Mark Cavendish was caught behind the late crash, ensuring the Briton was again unable to contest the sprint where Peter Sagan won the stage and took the yellow jersey from Fernando Gaviria.
Froome finished in the peloton, 1min 7sec down on Sagan, and Sky, now that they have rediscovered their bite, will be confident of putting Thomas in yellow.
“I gave him the benefit of the doubt when he started,” Brailsford said of Lappartient. “I thought, ‘OK, he is new to the job, he obviously doesn’t quite understand the responsibilities’. [But] if you want to be the president of an international federation, then protect everybody in that international community.”