Brailsford’s Sky falls in
CHRIS FROOME said he was “surprised” after Team Sky’s future was plunged into doubt by the withdrawal of their headline sponsor.
The end of cycling’s most successful – and controversial – venture was signalled when Sky announced it was pulling the plug on their eponymous team after the 2019 season.
Team Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford, who masterminded six Tour de France wins for Froome, Geraint Thomas and Sir Bradley Wiggins, promised: “We’re not finished yet.”
But Brailsford’s pet project will only continue in 2020 if a new backer is found. It is understood staff at Team Sky’s training camp in Mallorca were stunned when told the news.
Four-times Yellow Jersey winner Froome said: “Naturally it
came as a surprise but at the same time we’re extremely grateful for the time we’ve had with Sky as a sponsor.
“It’s been quite a journey and it’s not over yet. The team has been incredibly successful and I’ve got every confidence that if we deliver another season on a par with previous years, we should be able to find a new sponsor.”
Brailsford launched the team in 2010 with a target of crowning a British winner of the Tour within five years.
Since Wiggins became the first Briton to roll up the Champs-Elysees in triumph just two years later, Team Sky have dominated the race, winning six of the past seven.
But US cable giant Comcast’s £30billion takeover of Sky earlier this year always increased the likelihood of road cycling’s richest team needing fresh investment.
Brailsford claimed the news had not come as a shock to him, saying: “Let’s face it, the reality of the situation with Sky and the environment and everything else... did it come as a surprise? No, not really.
“We aren’t finished yet by any means. We will be doing everything we can to deliver more success in 2019.”
On Brailsford’s watch, Team Sky have won eight
Grand Tours,
52 other stage races and 25 one-day races.
But their budget
– which nudged
£35million this year – is the richest of any team on the road and has long been a source of envy. And although none of the mud slung at them has stuck, with no categorical proof they have broken any rules, Team Sky have been dogged by doping-related controversy.
The worst crisis was a damning parliamentary report, released earlier this year, which accused Wiggins of using an asthma drug to treat his pollen allergy as a performance-enhancing mechanism more than medical necessity.
Wiggins, who has also won eight Olympic medals, including five golds, furiously denies the allegation and slammed the Commons select committee’s report as a
“witchhunt”.
Then details of Froome returning an “adverse” drug test, for excess levels of the asthma medication salbutamol during his first-ever 2017 Vuelta triumph in Spain were leaked 12 months ago. Team Sky mobilised a powerful arsenal of legal expertise to exonerate the four-times Tour de France champion after race organisers threatened to ban him from this year’s race.
All the controversy is not believed to have been a factor in Sky’s decision to sever its ties with cycling.
There would be no shortage of takers for Thomas, Froome and highly-regarded Colombian Egan Bernal if Team Sky found no alternative sponsor for 2020 and beyond.