Wiggins set for U-turn and new Team Sky deal
TOUR de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins expects to stay at Team Sky but to change his focus to breaking the world hour record and winning a fifth Olympic gold medal in 2016.
Wiggins had been tipped to seek a move from the British outfit in a bid to challenge for more of cycling’s Grand Tours, having been usurped as Team Sky’s lead rider by Chris Froome and not even included in the squad for this year’s Tour de France.
The 34-year-old, who became the first Briton to win the race in 2012, now looks likely to continue working with long-term mentor and Team Sky boss Sir Dave Brailsford after all, with a new set of targets that also includes the Paris-Roubaix one-day race.
“My time as a Grand Tour rider is over. I’ll still ride them but not to win them,” Wiggins said in an interview with an Italian newspaper. “I’m thinking about the hour record. Not this year but I’ll try next year. And I’ll do it on these bikes because I’m going to stay at Sky.”
Wiggins emphasised his enjoyment of Paris-Roubaix – “the most beautiful roads, in the most fascinating race in the world” – and added: “I rode this year but next year I want to win it. It’ll be my big goal for 2015.”
Suggestions that a new contract with Team Sky have been agreed are believed to be premature, but Wiggins’s comments are the clearest indication yet of his long-term plans.
Britain’s most high-profile cyclist’s immediate target is this month’s Commonwealth Games, where he will compete on both track and road. He is tipped to go for the individual pursuit at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome and the time trial on the road, having won the British title last month.
Wiggins and his nemesis Froome could even race together at the Vuelta a Espana in August, while the Londoner is also likely to target the time trial at the Road World Championships in late September.