Wiggins eyes major wins with Team Sky
Maida Vale’s Bradley Wiggins insists Team Sky can help him challenge for victories in major stage races like the Tour de France as well as support his new team-mate Mark Cavendish as he aims to win sprints.
Wiggins was in Isleworth on Wednesday at the unveiling of the 2012 Sky squad, comprising 28 riders from 12 countries – including 10 Britons.
- Wiggins says he can enjoy success alongside Cavendish.
In the first two seasons, the British-based team has targeted the ‘general classification’ in major races, helping Chris Froome and Wiggins to second and third respectively in the Tour of Spain in September, after Wiggins crashed out of the Tour de France.
But the high-profile arrival of world champion Cavendish, after his HTC-Highroad team folded, means Sky will also have to commit riders to setting up sprint finishes, leaving fewer to help Wiggins.
“With Mark Cavendish joining we are ready to target sprints and GC in the same race and that is hugely exciting,” said Wiggins, who won the world time trial silver medal in Copenhagen in October, before helping to lead Cavendish to the world road title the following weekend.
“There is nothing we like more than someone saying it can’t be done,” he added.
“We have a fantastic-looking squad for 2012 and I think we are in great shape to build on our successes last year.”
Cavendish has brought Bernhard Eisel, Danny Pate and Kanstantsin Siutsou with him from Highroad, and Sky have also signed Australian Richie Porte – winner of the young rider competition in the 2010 Giro d’Italia.
Welshman Luke Rowe will step into the professional ranks after impressing at the British Cycling Academy.
Only two of the seven men in the Great Britain team that helped Cavendish to the world title – Steve Cummings and David Millar – are not part of Team Sky’s 2012 set-up.
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