Brailsford targets a GB win in the Tour

Salsiccia
Salsiccia Posts: 405
edited June 2008 in Pro race
Interesting...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/7475579.stm
I was only joking when I said
by rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed

Comments

  • Odelay!
    Odelay! Posts: 58
    From the article
    [Brailsford] anticipates delivering a British winner "in the medium term".

    "There's a couple of candidates who we feel have the capability [to win the Tour de France]," he said.

    Anyone have any ideas who he could be refering to?
  • robmanic1
    robmanic1 Posts: 2,150
    And I thought all my secret training had gone unnoticed!
    Pictures are better than words because some words are big and hard to understand.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/34335188@N07/3336802663/
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    Eh? A Tour winner is usually obliterating the opposition in their early 20s. Think Ullrich, who was a force at the age of 19. How Indurain rode too fast a tempo for Delgado in 1989. Armstrong as the precocious world champ. Maybe Riis was an exception but there's a reason behind that that Brailsford wouldn't like.

    So I can't see any British rider doing this quite yet. Maybe just PR to get attention and potential backers for GB team. Still, let's hope he's right.
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,253
    Kléber wrote:
    Eh? A Tour winner is usually obliterating the opposition in their early 20s. Think Ullrich, who was a force at the age of 19. How Indurain rode too fast a tempo for Delgado in 1989. Armstrong as the precocious world champ. Maybe Riis was an exception but there's a reason behind that that Brailsford wouldn't like.

    So I can't see any British rider doing this quite yet. Maybe just PR to get attention and potential backers for GB team. Still, let's hope he's right.

    Not winners, but a lot of contenders have bloomed late - Rasmussen, Leipheimer, Landis, Sastre (ok there may have been some doping involved for some). Evans didn't get off a mountain bike until he was 24 (although he was a MTB prodigy).

    They could always try to persuade Dan Martin that he's not really Irish.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • murcof
    murcof Posts: 30
    Ben Swift is quite young and quite good, not sure he's that good though.
  • graeme_s-2
    graeme_s-2 Posts: 3,382
    There's some more on this in The Guardian today. (There's another longer thread about this kicking around in this forum from a couple of months back as well).
    The Guardian wrote:
    Dave Brailsford, the cycling performance director, said he is close to raising the £24m over four years necessary to realise his dream of putting a British team in the Tour de France from 2010. He has been in close contact with a number of potential commercial backers and expects to begin negotiating with riders over contracts later this year. "Now is the moment because a lot of the British guys are out of contract next year," he said. His most important target is the sprinter Mark Cavendish, who was confirmed yesterday in the Columbia team's line-up for the Tour de France. The double Giro d'Italia stage winner is signed up to Columbia until the end of 2009 but is already being courted by other teams.

    While potential sponsors' names remain under wraps, Brailsford revealed that his team will be overseen by a trust which will ensure its "moral capital" and that his aim is a squad which will retain its name, in the style of Ferrari in formula one, rather than giving a backer sole title sponsorship. He is utterly confident about the project: "This thing looks as if it is going to happen."
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/ju ... ordonbrown
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    CW analyse it a bit

    http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/ANA ... 62366.html

    So I'm left thinking they have an even tougher task than I thought they did - Based on the talent pool.

    Hook up with the Aussies and get yourself a Commonwealth type of squadra. Then you could pretty compete at the top level in anything.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • OffTheBackAdam
    OffTheBackAdam Posts: 1,869
    He's high ambitions for it, I hope something comes of it.
    He talks about Tour winner and and Cavendish, how many teams have succesfully put a rider on the top step, plus succesfully backed a sprinter?
    Whoever he's got in mind for our victor, must be currently kicking ass in the Junior ranks in Europe.
    Anyone any ideas?
    Remember that you are an Englishman and thus have won first prize in the lottery of life.
  • DaveyL
    DaveyL Posts: 5,167
    OffTheBackAdam wrote:
    He's high ambitions for it, I hope something comes of it.
    He talks about Tour winner and and Cavendish, how many teams have succesfully put a rider on the top step, plus succesfully backed a sprinter?
    Whoever he's got in mind for our victor, must be currently kicking ass in the Junior ranks in Europe.
    Anyone any ideas?

    Telekom with Riis and Ullrich alongside Zabel.

    Er, I'll get me coat...
    Le Blaireau (1)

Categories