Is Bradley Wiggins A Worthwhile Leader Of Team Sky With Mark Cavendish's Arrival?

Bradley Wiggins is the current team leader of the British Cycling uber squad Team Sky. An exceptionally talented rider who has had extreme success in the velodrome and some success on the road.

However previously Team Sky have given Wiggins full support in his attempts at winning bike races- including the 2011 Tour De France and Vuelta A Espana stage races.

With the arrival of the 'Manx Missile' Mark Cavendish at Team Sky for whom a whole team was build around at Team HTC - High Road what could this mean for Bradley Wiggins? Surely Cavendish will expect a similar level of service and support from Team Sky as he has previously experienced. Cavendish is the current World Road Race Champion and Tour De France Sprinters Green Jersey Winner so is fully deserving of support as he is proven to deliver consistent results at the highest level.

With Wiggins having dreams of a Tour De France podium and Mark Cavendish having a love affair with the Tour De France and it's Green Jersey will Team Sky be able to accommodate and give sufficient support to both riders in their quest for results?

Or could it be a very difficult season at Team Sky? Could we see a power struggle at the Tour similar to that experienced between Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contado whilst riding for Astana?

Will one rider be given priority? Or can both riders be catered for?

Despite what many people might think- Professional Cycling is about Selling Products.

Which Team Sky rider is most likely to make you want to go out and buy a product? Categorically that has to be Mark Cavendish- he's the current World Champion and his more regular wins at the top level of professional cycling mean he's a walking billboard for his sponsors. Therefore Mark Cavendish is a product marketers dream. Victories sell bikes and products. The enthusiast sub-culture within cyclists^[1] means that riders are keen to ride the bikes of the Pro's.

Does Bradley Wiggins make a cyclist want to go out and buy a particular product? Having questioned a large number of cyclists it appears not (however you're welcome to advise in the comments below if he made you buy something) whereas the aura of Mark Cavendish and his immense success gives the sponsor the one thing they're really involved in cycling for- sales!

Would you really want to buy something just because Bradley Wiggins used it to finish 3rd in the 2011 Vuelta a Espana? Probably not as it's likely that you now remember who won the 2011 edition of the Vuelta- however do you still remember who came 3rd? Probably not!

Sky TV, Pinarello Bicycles, Kask helmets, IMG Investment Markets and all of the other sponsors of the Team will all want to be associated with a large amount of success and therefore will be more likely to wish for Mark Cavendish to lead Team Sky in 2012.

One of the main questions on Wiggins' ability to lead Team Sky in the long term has to be regarding his mental toughness.

At the 2011 Vuelta A Espana despite leading the race and appearing in exceptionally good form there were constant mutterings on a regular basis that the climbs simply didn't suit Wiggins as a climber. Would a strong team leader really admit such a weakness prior to stages? And would they really admit to such when their team-mates have put in an exceptional amount of work to help put Wiggins in such a commanding position within a race? Every one of the Team Sky riders would have likely been demotivated that their hard work was not being rewarded for the Team.

Could Team Sky help to put Bradley Wiggins in the Yellow Jersey of the Tour De France while Mark Cavendish Wears the Sprinters Green Jersey?

Team Sky have a fantastic set of assets however the biggest challenge will be the management of both riders and prioritising their riders in the right way.

Cavendish has proven himself to be extremely successful with a full team to provide him with back-up whilst at HTC-Highroad for whom he was almost always the main priority. Sky have signed his former team-mate and trusted lieutenant Bernard Eisel to support Mark Cavendish however while Eisel was previously a strong part of Cav's lead out train he was very rarely involved at the end of the sprint so the likelihood is now that Cavendish is going to have to do alot of work on his own. Many people have cited that his win in the recent World Championships shows that he doesn't need a complete chain of riders to help him win^[2] -however sprint finishes at the World Championships very rarely resemble the more structured race finishes seen in the Tour De France.

If Bradley Wiggins is to Win the Tour De France or at least finish on the Podium Team Sky will have to apply a huge amount of resources. In Chris Froome they have a rider capable of riding well in the mountains as a domestique and who realistically was a far better rider than Wiggins in the Vuelta if you consider all of the climbs.

While hindsight is a wonderful thing in the world of professional cycling it has to be asked whether the management and riders at Team Sky really get their tactics right.

In the 2011 Tour De France should Team Sky have given Geraint Thomas a higher degree of protected rider status on the seventh stage of the race when Wiggins went to ground with a broken collarbone. The whole of Team Sky was pulled back from the bunch in the assumption of needing to chase back and help Wiggins back into the bunch. Thomas was riding exceptionally well at the time in the White 'Younger riders' jersey. The following morning on personal arrival at a local club ride there was more a feeling that people were gutted for Geraint Thomas having in such a great position in the race than for the fact that Bradley Wiggins was out of the race.

Sometimes you read a sports autobiography with a sports star that you don't really know and start to understand their passion for the sport. You start to understand what makes them tick and what gets them out of bed every morning.

In Pursuit Of Glory is billed as

"the compelling story of an Olympic hero"

Maybe whoever wrote that read a completely different book to the one I spent my Christmas week reading. Normally I get a cycling related book on Christmas day as a gift from my parents and it's read by mid afternoon Boxing Day. Sadly I had extreme difficulty doing this for Wiggins.

I've since tried to read the book again and believe that the difficulty seems to be due to an extreme lack of passion within the book. In fact on the second read I started to find it boring. It's been a long time i've said that about a sports autobiography however Bradley Wiggins seemed to resemble a cardboard cut-out which rides around a track a velodrome and that's about as far as the book seems to go. Maybe this is the effect he has on his team mates at Team Sky? Can Bradley Wiggins really motivate his teammates to ride for him?

What are your thoughts on the subject of Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins both doing well at Team Sky? Can they both do well in the Tour? Or will it all end in tears?

1. Suciu, P. Do pro cyclists really help sell bikes? www.bikeradar.com

2. Boardman, C. Chris Boardman on how Sky can deploy Wiggins and Cavendish www.bbc.co.uk.