End of an era: 'Ineos no longer British team, but team that has to win' - Bradley Wiggins
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Updated 29/08/2020 at 15:14 GMT
In the latest episode of the Bradley Wiggins Show podcast, Wiggins says he believes it is the end of an era under Dave Brailsford with Ineos no longer a British team but purely focused on winning.
Bradley Wiggins and his Team Sky team-mates celebrate on the final stage of the 2012 Tour de France
Image credit: Getty Images
Wiggins' comments come after a dramatic week in which Brailsford and Ineos announced that Geraint Thomas would be saved for the Giro d'Italia, while four-time Tour champion Chris Froome would have to settle for La Vuelta rather than compete for another title in France.
With Egan Bernal leading a truly international Ineos Grenadiers team at the Tour, Wiggins believes that despite the signing of Adam Yates who will join Brailsford at the end of the season, it is now an outfit set up simply to win - a poignant observation from Britain's first Tour de France champion while at Team Sky back in 2012.
"Ultimately, this is about the team winning and not nationalities or emotions or loyalties and everyone is part of that decision in that team," Wiggins said on the latest podcast.
They have kind of achieved it now, that whole British thing, and they have transitioned into just an international team now that needs to win. They achieved that goal, they are 10 years in now and the whole plan, the mission statement, has changed and it has to I suppose.
"They can’t keep to that thing that there always has to be a British winner. They have got the finance to have four or five big leaders as well, which also helps. That is not taking anything away from all the professionalism, the planning, that goes in and Dave at the helm, etc. So, they will be the favourites for the Tour this year.
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Bradley Wiggins and his Team Sky team-mates celebrate on the final stage of the 2012 Tour de France
Image credit: Getty Images
"It has been 10 years, hasn’t it, and having a British team at the Tour de France and a British winner, we’ve had a few now. You get the sense that, although the team has got some British contenders for next year and obviously Adam Yates has come along.
"I think he is the next one they are going to start to build up as the next British Tour winner, if you consider that Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome are into their mid-thirties. So they are now looking at Adam Yates, that is the one they seem to have gone for.
But it does feel like the mantra of what they were all about has gone over the years at this point really, and I think it is now not a British team at the Tour de France.
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Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas
Image credit: Getty Images
Wiggins even added that Brailsford's management style can be compared to Sir Alex Ferguson when it comes to big decisions such as team selections.
"There is constant communication with the trainers and he will be in communication with Geraint and Froome all the time and they will foresee this," Wiggins said.
I've seen Gary Neville talking about why Sir Alex Ferguson was so good in the way he talked to them, and Dave would have been in constant communication and the numbers would correlate with what he tells them.
"G would probably be the first to say that he could do a job for Egan, but Dave would have said: 'Don't worry about the Tour, let's go for the Giro instead'. He gives respect to the riders in that sense."
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Bradley Wiggins: Dave Brailsford manages Ineos like Sir Alex Ferguson
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