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!.