Yesterday’s stage was remarkable for Riblon’s brave ride, and for Schleck and Contador’s mind games, whilst their rivals stole a march on them. Further back, however, a less inspiring story was unfolding.
Bradley Wiggins arrived 4’ 59’’ behind Riblon and is now 11 and a half minutes behind Schleck overall. His initial ambition of a podium finish deserted him in the Alps, but he now has to give up on a top ten finish too. He has gone from ranking 4th in last year’s Tour, to place second best in his own team, a team which was built around him. It borders on embarrassing.
Yesterday’s comments to the press said as much:
“Do you want me to honest with you? I’m gone, mate,” Wiggins said. “I’m not going to lie to you, I just don’t have the form, I haven’t got it like last year. I just feel consistently mediocre.”
Not great for Team Sky, whose overall performance is also somewhat mediocre. It’s a middling performance in the team competition, they have no stage wins and no realistic chance of winning any of the jerseys.
There are great talents in the team, of course, in the shape of Geraint Thomas and Edvald Boasson Hagen, but they are names for the future, and a brief spell in white for Thomas isn’t enough to proclaim Sky’s Tour a success. Their great hope was Wiggins, after all, and one can’t help but think that Team Sky has miscalculated badly when it comes to their team leader.
Even back at stage 8, Wiggins was telling reporters that the 2’ 45’’ distance to the race leader would be enough for a podium finish. Yesterday, Wiggins admitted that last year’s Tour was ‘a fluke’, and so the question is: should Team Sky have seen that coming? The Times reported on poor performance in training prior to the Tour, and his achievements at the Giro were unconvincing as well.
The Tour aside, Team Sky has the potential to do great things for British cycling, both for the sport, and for getting the general population on their bikes. There is a wave of cycling enthusiasm rolling over the country at the moment, the combined appeal of money-saving and improved fitness makes cycling an easy sell. The capital is leading the way with the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme, the new cycling superhighways and a number of exciting cycling cafes opening.
Team Sky are in the thick of this with their Skyrides initiative, and they are no doubt also a great factor in raising British viewing figures for the Tour by 25% too. It would have helped no end, however, to have had a poster boy, or two, with some decent Tour results to show for, but that looks unlikely now.
They’re a new team, of course, and are going through a great learning curve at this year’s Tour. The Tour was meant to be a five year project for Sky, and they will no doubt regroup and come back stronger. Even so, this was not the how the plan looked back at the drawing board.
They are also a hugely expensive team, and generally speaking, when someone assembles something at great cost, they expect to see some return for their investment.
With a name like Sky, the puns are there for the taking too – Sky-high fiasco, anyone? Bit harsh, perhaps, but the jury is out on Team Sky’s maiden Tour voyage.
Wiggins aside, I actually think Sky have had a pretty decent debut Tour, with EBH and Thomas to the fore. But you’re absolutely right that Wiggo’s decline to mediocrity has put a huge dent in how positively (or not) they will look back on the three weeks.
The big question now is where do they go from here. I think it’s clear now that Wiggo is not going to deliver the stated aim of a British TDF winner within 5 years. And Thomas, for everything good he has done here, is miles away from being a Tour contender – he has a long way to go to be even competitive in the high mountains.
I really like Lofkvist, who is now Sky’s best-placed rider on GC, and who was going to be their Tour leader before the signing of Wiggins. He’s 26 (I think), approaching his peak years, and if he isn’t given the chance to lead I can see him going elsewhere.
To be honest, I think we all know what the best step Sky could take is to move them up a level: sign Cav, and focus on stage wins rather than the yellow jersey. But there is absolutely no reason for Cav to leave HTC-C, unless Sky are going to throw money at the problem, which for me would involve signing Renshaw too.
It’s time to re-evaluate expectations, I think. And it would help if the good folks at the BBC actually covered the race in terms broader than head-butting and old doping bans. Sigh.
The problem with expensive teams is that expectations will be equally high. It’s a bit harsh to criticise their performance, perhaps, Wiggo aside, but great things were expected of Team Sky, and so I fear there will be a sense of disappointment around.
A re-evaluation is certainly in order, with the team leadership top of the agenda. Wiggins won’t win the GC on current evidence, so they may consider a new front man if that remains the aim, though he wouldn’t be British, at least not for a few years still. Lofkvist has potential, but I’m not sure I see him as a yellow jersey contender.
Alternatively, they could regroup and focus on stage wins should they land Cavendish, and that would certainly lead to a great deal of exposure for Sky. But, like you say, they would need to spend a lot of money to make it attractive to him. He has a very good set-up where he is.
It’ll be interesting to watch Team Sky’s development over the next couple of years. The team has a key role to play in the development of British cycling and could grow the fanbase many times over, but they will need to improve on this year’s performance to do that.
Team Sky and Wiggins could never have hoped to live up to the pre-Tour expectations, which most of us probably knew were unrealistic for a new outfit. Maybe everyone assumed that the magic formula of Dave Brailsford, aggregated incremental improvement and a whopping great pile of someone else’s money would work on the road as it has in the velodrome – with Wiggins, among others. And even if he HAD won, i guess a lot of people would have shrugged and said, “Well, they’ve got a budget of £35m – anyone could win with that kind of money.” Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. I really feel for Wiggins – there really is nowhere to hide on the Tour – and I respect him for his comments in the papers today. A bit of the same humility and humanity wouldn’t go amiss among some other highly-paid, high-profile sports stars at the moment!
I agree with everything you say.
I think one of the things that also needs to be done is to educate the British sporting public. The Tour is a complex event to get your head around, and my fear is that to the passing watcher the obvious association is: Sky = money = Premier League = so-called best league in the world, therefore Team Sky = money = best road cycling team in the world, particularly when you count up the track medals from Beijing. Obviously, it’s more complex than that, but not to the casual viewer who watches the BBC round-ups and sees only “head-butt” and “Vino the drug cheat” as the lead stories. This is why Cav will never win BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
I’m going to get round to writing that rant on the rest day, I think …
Incidentally, I agree about Lofkvist. I think he has the potential to emerge from the shadows of a big name team leader a bit like van den Broeck has this year, but he’s not a Tour winner-in-waiting. Top ten, probably.
I was tempted to make the football comparison, in terms of expectation. Question is, I suppose, what did Sky expect?
You’re right about educating the public – looking forward to that blog post! On paper, cycling might not seem that complex, just cycle from A to B as fast as you can. Team Sky will help generate more interest from the public, hopefully leading to better coverage too.
I completely agree with regards to Wiggo’s attitude yesterday. Full marks for the way he has handled himself these last few days. Now, that’s where the football comparison really does kick in…
If I was a Commercial Director at Sky I would be worried that I had invested so much money for so little air-time. Cav is a real asset to HTC, as he goes over the line with the cameras on him, and by default, their logo. Whilst I think it is admirable that Sky want to get into cycling generally, surely they expected more return on their considerable investment.
Exactly my worry. It would be interesting to know how Sky rates this year’s achievements.