Wiggins: Rivalry may spell trouble

● Former Tour winner sees difficulties in battle between Froome and Thomas

Sir Bradley Wiggins has claimed Team Sky will have a “real problem on their hands” if Geraint Thomas takes the yellow jersey in the Tour de France ahead of Chris Froome.

Thomas is second behind Greg Van Avermaet in the general classification after nine stages, 43 seconds off yellow and 59 seconds ahead of Froome as the race heads towards the Alps.

Though Sky have insisted Froome remains the team leader, Thomas has been given licence to race for himself through the first part of the Tour and 2012 winner Wiggins foresees trouble if he remains ahead.

“This is where it gets difficult, as we hit first mountain stage,” the ex-sky rider said on Eurosport. “If Geraint stays where he is and takes the yellow jersey, they’ve got a real problem on their hands.”

Wiggins said that Sir Dave Brailsford would be “in the ears” of both riders telling them they can win the Tour in order to keep them motivated, suggesting the team principal can be “divisive” and “self-serving” at such times.

“Does Dave B come in and do his usual and be quite divisive and get in each other’s ear and kind of keep them both motivated for the same goal and there be a natural selection?

“Dave will certainly be in both of their ears and be telling them they can both win it, as a way of motivating them, as a way of playing these cards deep in to the race and let the natural selections come in to play.”

Wiggins added of Brailsford: “He’s quite self-serving. For him, it’s about the team winning – it’s not about the individuals or the characters. He will always be in those riders’ ears constantly and he has been up till now as you can see.”

Speaking after a rest day training ride yesterday, Froome and Thomas downplayed the situation.

“I think that the race, as always, will decide [leadership],” Froome said.

“For us, it’s fantastic to have different cards to play.

“Movistar have come here with three leading riders [Nairo Quintana, Mikel Landa and Alejandro Valverde], and with only one GC contender it becomes difficult to cover all three.

“If you look at all the GC riders, ‘G’ is right up there. It’s for other teams to attack us now.”

Thomas added that it was speculative to even discuss it before a single mountain stage.

“I think it’s a bit early to be talking about that,” he said. “Maybe if I’m still right there after Alpe d’huez [on Thursday], it’s a bit different then. But we haven’t done a proper climb yet. I’m certainly not getting carried away.”

Asked if he had spoken to Froome about it, Thomas

0 Geraint Thomas prepares to leave for a training session in Chambery yesterday.

said: “We’ve kind of spoken in general about things. And yeah, he’s keen for me to try. If I do have the chance to stay up there, to let me have that, you

know? But we’re honest with each other.”

Brailsford was not present at Sky’s media access yesterday.

Riding as his domestique,

Froome finished second to Wiggins in 2012 and famously appeared to attack his team leader on La Toussuire on stage 11 before sitting up and waiting for him – a moment interpreted as Froome showing he was strong enough to win on his own. But Froome rejected any comparison between that race and this.

“He [Thomas] is riding extremely well and, like I said earlier, it just puts us in an even better place,” he said. “It’s a totally different situation [to 2012].”

The Tour will head straight into the mountains after the rest day, with today’s stage ten taking the peloton over four categorised climbs in 158.5km of racing between Annecy and Le Grand-bornand.