Nicolas Portal to Team Sky, Hayman, Calzati also confirmed

kourou

Caisse d'Epargne rider for a few years, formerly at AG2R with Calzati and Gerrans. Had heart probs this year, but now certified ok to race, but CDE did not renew. His manager was still hoping for a renewal as late as the end of October.

Maybe Sky want to shore up their Tour credentials with a second Frenchman?

Stop press/keyboard: As I'm writing I see that this, plus Sylvain Calzati and Matt Hayman has been confirmed, but to be honest I'm obviously confusing leaks and official comment as I thought those two were in since ages ago...

kourou

And Nygaard also confirmed? This is starting to feel like groundhog day.

afx237vi

Maybe if they keep announcing the same riders over and over again, they're hoping to trick race organisers into thinking they have enough depth to ride three GTs.

kourou

Interesting comment here:

"Nicolas Portal devra donc attendre comme beaucoup d'autres coureurs que Contador ait fait son choix." - http://www.cyclismag.com/article.php?sid=5407

He must wait like a lot of other riders until Contador has made his choice.

Fairly obvious to most that this has been a problem, but now that Contador has signed a personal deal with Specialized, and limited his team choice effectively to Quickstep and Astana, this means the Garmin/Sky merry-go-round for Wiggins' move is at the very least less likely.

Today's announcements (Spesh-Contador / new Sky riders) suggest Wiggins is not going to Sky, and that at least some of the transfer market is now set to start moving again...

kickerbri

However if you add David Vigano and Dario Cioni it gives them a 24 rider roster so far, they have said they will have 25 riders.

So there is effectively one more rider to be named. Now this could quite porribly be Bradley Wiggins and they have delayed the final announcement a number of times possibly waiting for a firm answer?

It was however also reumoured in the Italian press over the weekend that Charley Wegelius could be joining Team Sky.

iainf72

kickerbri wrote:

It was however also reumoured in the Italian press over the weekend that Charley Wegelius could be joining Team Sky.

It would make sense to add another Scandinavian to the squad

kourou

So at least for 2010, perhaps they'll be hoping for a 'reasonably good' TdeF GC performance from someone, and go for stages?

Nothing is certain, but I can see more potential stage winners (some Scandinavian, Spanish, Australian, but yes some are British!) in the team line-up than will fit in a TdeF squad. Plan B doesn't sound too bad if you put it like that.

With Wiggins, this could have been an aggressive GC TdeF for Sky, but without him (unless someone like Thomas or Kennaugh pull 'a Wiggins') I suspect they will look to gather strength and build a solid platform - its supposed to be a long term project after all. That is probably a better reflection of what they intended to do before Wiggins' stand-out 2009 TdeF.

wicked

kourou wrote:

So at least for 2010, perhaps they'll be hoping for a 'reasonably good' TdeF GC performance from someone, and go for stages?

Nothing is certain, but I can see more potential stage winners (some Scandinavian, Spanish, Australian, but yes some are British!) in the team line-up than will fit in a TdeF squad. Plan B doesn't sound too bad if you put it like that.

With Wiggins, this could have been an aggressive GC TdeF for Sky, but without him (unless someone like Thomas or Kennaugh pull 'a Wiggins') I suspect they will look to gather strength and build a solid platform - its supposed to be a long term project after all. That is probably a better reflection of what they intended to do before Wiggins' stand-out 2009 TdeF.

Well said. I do not remember Brailsford , Sunderland or anyone else for that matter saying they were going to win the tour in 2010. I seem to remember them saying they wanted an invite, gain experience, try to make some form of impact. More realistic. Some seem to be saying there is no is no GC contender, worst case scenario is they wait for 2011 and get wiggo far cheaper!

Quite Frankly

The trouble for Sky is that without Wiggins there's a very real danger of 2010 turning out to be a complete wash-out in terms of exposure.

No GC or Sprint contender in the TDF = Jack shit coverage in the British press.

They have their fingers in the pie in other European nations but expanding their British subscriber base must surely be their number one goal.

Quite Frankly

When I say ''British Press'' I am of course referring to the outlets not already under BSKYB's control.

wicked

Quite Frankly wrote:

When I say ''British Press'' I am of course referring to the outlets not already under BSKYB's control.

I do not think any team containing EBH will have a "washout", he is going to be special that lad.
I think the benchmark for Sky is Katusha and Cervelo. Two new teams and for me Cervelo (a team sunderland helped create) made a better debut than the russians. Even so they got a TdF winner in their ranks and what happened? The impact and headlines came from Haussler and Thor. Unless you have a very rare breed of rider its far better to forget GC. For me Cervelo had an outstanding first season and Sky will hope to equal that.
Rome was not built in a day!

kourou

Also worth bearing in mind that as Sky and BC have agreed a five-year deal (I think that's correct?), and BC's track record on putting together successful long term programmes is good, we can fairly safely assume that if 2010 is "a complete wash-out in terms of exposure", it won't be a major issue. It may even have been assumed from the start.

More important are the long term goals and intermediate milestones they have agreed, and not publicised. I very much doubt that one of those milestones is "achieve significant [over and above taking part in the Pro Tour and TdeF etc, i.e. a TdeF jersey, 4 stages or similar] exposure for the Sky brand within one year". Noone invests that much money without some idea of what will happen to it, and noone accepts that sort of money without setting realistic, if not slightly pessimistic, expectations. Well, noone sensible anyway.

Under-promise and over-achieve is always a good move, but its fair to say noone has even tried to quash the hype generated in forums like this and in the media, so if they disappoint their public they will have to share some of the blame, even if they have met their own expectations.

If a Brit winning the Tour within five years is more than just PR, and is actually *the* major goal, then significant success in year one is probably relatively unimportant (unless Brad comes on board in which case it may be worth a shot).

More than likely though, they are expecting some success given the riders they have, and the levels of support they will be able to provide. Cervelo-type sporting success, or better, may be a little optimistic I suspect - but not beyond their wildest dreams given EBH - in year one. Having said that anything less than Katusha levels of success (stand-out wins: Amstel, Russian and Italian nat champs - not bad, not great) would probably be very disappointing to all concerned... I'd hope they'd want to go quite a bit better than Katusha, but what do I know?