Sky Squad Speculation

Team Sky have announced their teams for Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, and very interesting they are in light of expectations of the team for the rest of the season.

Tirreno-Adriatico’s status as preparatory leg stretcher for Milan-San Remo explains the decision to send Edvald Boasson Hagen, Mark Cavendish, Bernhard Eisel, Juan Antonio Flecha, Mathew Hayman, Thomas Lofkvist, Ian Stannard and Chris Sutton. With the exception of Lofkvist, it’s a team of guys who specialise in flat or arduous terrain, and in Eisel and Stannard you get two tireless workhorses who excel at setting Cav up for a sprint.

Perhaps more interesting is the Paris-Nice squad. The race’s three most pivotal stages will be the opening time trial, the stage from Onet-Le-Chateau to the summit of Mende  that features a 3rd, a 2nd and three 1st category climbs, and the traditional closing time trial that climbs the short, sharp Col d’Eze.

 It’s a route that begs for a strong time triallist supported by riders who can climb a bit. So Sky are sending  Chris Froome, Christian Knees, Danny Pate, Richie Porte, Kanstantsin Siutsou, Geraint Thomas, Rigoberto Urán and Bradley Wiggins.

It’s hard to envision a a squad better suited to shepherding Wiggin’s to a victory.  Take it a step further: if you were picking a nine-man Sky squad for the Tour de France and Cavendish weren’t an issue, than you’d pretty much just send that Paris-Nice squad plus one more climber for mountain protection-most would suggest Lofkvist, but I haven’t forgiven his anonymity at the Vuelta, so I’d opt for Sergio Henao.

Of course, Cav is an issue, and I’d expect him to want to take Eisel and Stannard to the Tour. There’s a long time to go until July, but when Sky eventually announce their Tour squad I wouldn’t be very upset to see it composed of those three plus the strongest six from the Paris-Nice squad. Obviously past TDF stage winners Edvald Boasson Hagen and Juan Antonio Flecha would feel somewhat differently, but in all honesty, I'd be happy to see no stage  hunters taken at all. I feel awful for saying it, but I'd even drop Cav and Eisel given the choice, and build the Tour squad entirely around Wiggo's pursuit of Yellow.

In any case, next week's racing should provide the first hints of what we'll see come July.

Mark Cavendish: Britain's sweariest role model?

The shortlist for BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2011 has been announced, and it's making me quietly optimistic. For the second year running, Mark Cavendish is among the contenders, as are golfers Darren Clarke, Luke Donald and Rory McIlroy, cricketer Alastair Cook, athlete Mo Farah, athlete Dai Greene, boxer Amir Khan, tennis player Andy Murray and cricketer Andrew Strauss.

This time last year I was exhorting people to “Vote Cav...in fact, vote Cav eight times, one for each Grand Tour stage win”. Sadly, it was to no avail. Capturing the Vuelta’s Green Jersey isn’t the same as capturing the public’s imagination with Tour De France successes, and for all that Cav’s 2010 TDF stage haul was impressive, I think it disappointed some people: they’re used to seeing him cross the line first, this time they wanted a jersey in Paris.

To a cycling fan, it seemed almost inconceivable that Cav’s 2010 season didn’t deserve wider recognition, but when you looked at that year's shortlist it was hard to ignore the number of household names Cav was up against-Jessica Ennis, David Haye, Graeme Swann, Tom Daley and the eventual winner, Tony McCoy, a man who started dominating his sport back when Cav's bike still had spokie-dokies.

This year, things look different. There are still plenty of household names in the list, but there isn't as much silverware amongst them. They’re all deserving candidates, but for the most part they’re either there for having had one or two high profile victories, or for leading the field in their chosen sport. Or for being Andy Murray.

Mark Cavendish, on the other hand, ticks both boxes, having been consistently at the top of his profession for several years as well having had several stand-out wins this year. World Champion. Green Jersey. Two Giro stage wins, five Tour stage wins, a spell in the Maglia Rosa. Then there have been the victories that were less high-profile for cycling fans but arguably more important for the casual voter: winning the Olympic test event, winning the final stage of the Tour of Britain and getting started on a family with Peta Todd.

British sporting life has long since left behind the days of loveable losers like Eddie Edwards and Tim Henman, and we’re getting quite used to being able to point at our athletes and call them the best in the world, but in Cavendish we’ve got something even better: short of a spectacular loss of form or terrible injury, he’s going to go down in the history books as the greatest sprinter of all time.

On top of that, he’s articulate, emotionally honest, engaging and unfailingly polite about his teammates. He sets goals and works tirelessly towards them, and he delivers on his promises. He’s just about the sweariest man who could ever be described as a role model. That’s got to be worth half-a-dozen phone votes on December 22nd, surely?

What's that, Mark? You want me to vote twice? OK!

Cavendish and Wiggins: The Simple Solution

In Dave Brailsford's recent Radio 5 interview he suggested that the key to defending the Green Jersey won by Mark Cavendish last year whilst simultaneously pursuing the Yellow Jersey for Bradley Wiggins would be in packing the team out with super-strong domestiques. Marvellous. Glad he thought of that. So simple.

We all know it won't be that easy. The last team to successfully pursue yellow and green was Deutsche Telekom, who managed the feat in 1996 and 1997, with Erik Zabel taking the first two of his six Green Jerseys, while Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich both captured their sole Yellow Jerseys. Deutsche Telekom could draw on an admirable selection of super super tough domestiques, including Rolf Aldag, Brian Holm and Udo Bolts.

Cavendish knows Aldag, Holm and Zabel well, having worked with them as directeur sportifs at HTC. While they undoubtedly contributed a great deal of experience and tactical savvy to the Manxman's tally of victories, one ingredient from the Telekom team that they've always tried to leave behind is EPO.

I'm not being snide here. I've said plenty of times that pre-Festina doping and post-Festina doping seem like very different things to me. The point is, packing a team full of domestiques capable of leading out sprints through the first week and towing leaders over mountains in the second and third isn't really as practical as it used to be in the bad old days of proper preparation.

There is a simple and practical solution, however. One that we all know, but which no one will dare say out loud: don't chase the Green Jersey. I love Cavendish to bits; he's made the first week of the Tour worth watching again, but he's only 26. In all likelihood, he's got at least four more years before his powers even begin to fade, and as Zabel showed, canny racing can still bag you points jerseys even after you stop being as powerfully and repeatably explosive as you once were.

Wiggins, on the other hand, is 31. He hasn't got many chances left. More importantly, how often in the last ten years have you seen a Grand Tour route with over 90K of Time Trialling in it? When Team GB saw how well suited to Cavendish this year's Worlds route was, they agreed to put aside all individual ambitions and ride for Cav. Team Sky need to apply the same logic to the Tour. The route suits Wiggins, and he'll never have a better chance to win the biggest prize in cycling. The team needs to be entirely and completely focussed on working for Bradley.

For one season, Cav needs to put his Tour ambitions aside. The team can build his program around the Giro or the Vuelta, or he could chase Milan-San Remo, Ghent-Wevelgem and Paris-Tours. He'll have plenty of opportunities to chase the Green Jersey in years to come, but I'd hate to see Wiggins lose his best shot at the Tour because Dave Brailsford thinks he can split the efforts of a clean team the way it used to be possible to split the efforts of an 'enhanced' squad.