Is Team Sky finally coming good?

When Team Sky was announced in 2009, I am sure the majority of British cyclists were very excited to see a team associated with Britain once again. Bagging the valuable signing of Bradley Wiggins was very much an added bonus after an unbelievable 4^th place in the 2009 Tour de France. The team looked set to take over the world with its multi-millions of BSkyB’s money and is ‘transformer’ like buses (yes there’s two!). But after their maiden win at the tour of Australia there wasn’t much to get that excited about. There was so much expectation from the ‘super team Sky’, we all thought the sky really was the limit, but very little sparkled. Major events that stood out were few and far between, Bradley Wiggins taking the Pink jersey in the prologue of the Giro d’ Italia, and Geraint Thomas becoming the British National Champion seemed to offer very little weight to the heavy investment that Team Sky had at their peril.

Geraint Thomas

One major factor which was blamed on the lack of success was put down to the rare interactions between rider and fans. Professional cycling is a rare sport where fans and spectators can easily gain close access to athletes and see their equipment close up and personal. Team Sky decided to close their doors on prospective fans in an attempt to keep their team focused and on the ball before races, creating a major gap between team and spectator. Brailsford has corrected this, most probably as a result of the lack of involvement fans could have with the team, plus I don’t think BSkyB were particularly happy with their image being tainted by the ‘closed door strategy’ Team Sky had at the time, even while they were shooting blanks in races.

Bradley Wiggins winning the Criterium du Dauphine

Roll on 2011 and the Brits seemed to have woken up, as it looks like a completely different team with Geraint Thomas finishing many of the spring classics in very strong positions, Ben Swift showing his class with a good tally of stage wins already this year, and the greatest achievement by Team Sky in their very brief history coming at the Criterium du Dauphine as he won the General classification for what many call the mini Tour de France. It feels like there’s finally a real chance for there to be a British rider competing for every aspect of a professional road race, from the sprinters to the mountain climber and the GC contenders. BSkyB had a vision of creating a British Tour de France winner in 5 years from 2010 and it feels realistic. The futures bright, the futures ‘black, white and blue’, Hopefully!.       

‘Pretty in Pink’. Giro d’Italia. The greatest grand tour on earth?

2011 Giro d'Italia Winner- Contador

From the podium girls to the monumental climbs, every aspect of the Giro d’Italia oozes class. 2011’s tour has just finished for all riders involved with much relief, anguish, and for one very happy rider a pink jersey. I have watched very few Giro’s (two fully in total), but every time I turn on the television to watch the riders poised to attack for the line I think to myself, ‘this is one very special race’. The Giro seems to carry a different air about it than its rival across the border, the Tour de France, the climbs look much more severe and technical than the sun baked over crowded climbs that feature in the Tour de France. Many of the climbs such as the Passo Gavia with its corridors of snow and the epic mountain top finishes of Mount Etna and Monte Zoncolan have gaps of spectators as a result of how rural the roads can be, and with adverse weather conditions a certainty during the month on May, the small number of spectators on the rainy days does offer some light to how alone the breakaway riders must feel as they relentlessly turn over the pedals on their bicycles for what must seem like an eternity until they are either caught or they reach the line.

 

It’s not just the stages and the setup that makes the Giro such a great monument, the supporters offer quite a lot of the excitement and much more to the spectacle of the race. The Italian cycling fans treat their fellow country cyclists as gods, cheering on their every move, helping them up mountain roads with not so gentle pushes and offering copies of the Gazzetta dello sport to put down the front of their jerseys before the cool descents from the mountain tops, truly rewarding support. Flip this over to ‘le tour’ and you’ll see foreigners (including the Brits) people screaming straight in riders face directly stood inches from the front wheel and the pratt’s running full-pelt alongside riders, I find myself watch the mountain stages  half the time shouting ‘get out the way you D**K!’.      

Some of the stage roads from this year’s Giro were, to put it nicely, a bit rough, but that seemed to add to the traditional feel that was on offer. With its hill climb time trials and its positively cyclocross like routes on occasions, the Giro does like to keep in touch with its roots which seems to give it that golden age prestige still today, although some of that may be offered over the television by the Eurosport programme directors way of turning the colour off and going back to the black and white picture on a regular basis for some sort of arty reason.

The Italians seem to know that they’ve got something special from cycling in the Giro d’Italia as once the first grand tour of the year is over there are no major professional events that are looked upon on the same scale as the Giro or the Milan-San Remo for that matter in Italy. The Giro d’Italia is surely the greatest opening to the grand tours of Europe and long may it continue to open the grand tour season for many years to come.