Team Sky’s debut week of the Tour de France
For the first time since 1987, Britain has raised a team for the Tour de France. The Sky Team is made up of eight cyclists led by Bradley Wiggins, last year’s fourth place finisher, and includes Norway's Edvald Boasson Hagen—seen as a major hope for the future—and recently crowned British champion Geraint Thomas, who is off to an impressive start in the 2010 Tour, after unexpectedly outdoing his team leader after the crash in the second stage.
Thomas held the 2nd place overall behind Fabian Cancellara from the third to the sixth stage, during which he wore the white jersey for best young rider, until the Tour entered the mountains in Saturday’s seventh stage and shook up the overall standings. Thomas now stands in 8th in the green jersey competition and 10th in the white jersey competition, while his team leader Wiggins stands in 16th overall, still within reach of a top-ten finish.
Wiggins lacked the climbing power to follow Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck into the front of the Tour’s ninth stage when the route climbed the Col de la Madeleine. He finished 30th, 4 minutes and 44 seconds behind the stage winner, Sandy Casar.
"That's just the way it goes,” said Wiggins. “That's life, unfortunately. You try your hardest, you do everything possible to be in good shape and obviously I'm not up there with the best of them. But it's only sport at the end of the day. We put everything into it, it hasn't worked. It's not because we haven't tried," he said philosophically.
The 30-year old sprinter plans to keep up the fight and has the advantage in the flat stages of Wednesday and Friday and the decisive stage 19, an individual time-trial .
"I'll just do my best every day. I don't think the GC's finished totally in terms of getting a respectable position. But I'll try and do my best to finish top ten and just keep pushing on for that and get the best out of myself each day … say top 10 is now the goal."
Impressive debut for Team Sky
The team officially launched on January 4th, and went on to take home the first and second place at their debut event in Adelaide. Wiggins finished 8th in the stage four of the team’s first Tour de France, 53 seconds behind Hushovd but ahead of Alberto Contador, moving Sky to 3rd place in the Team Classification, where they remained until the 7th stage, thanks to remarkable performance by multiple individuals.
Teammate Hagen stands in 6th place in the points classification, to spots closer to the green jersey than Thomas. Thomas Lovkvist stands in 19th overall, three spots behind Wiggins. Canada’s Michael Barry has been helping the team through the most chaotic moments since he survived the Prologue crash which left many riders behind.
“The biggest difference in the racing is that the cyclists are more nervous as they know the stakes are higher,” said Barry on Monday. “Being a part of it all has been a thrill and competing with a good group of teammates, who are also friends, makes the experience richer.”
While Wiggins and Barry have both suffered crashes, they haven’t been too disadvantaged since most of the riders in the peloton have been down at least once in this hectic edition of the tour. The same can’t be said about Team Sky member Simon Gerrans, who broke his arm in the eighth stage on Sunday.
“It was heartbreaking seeing him go home,” said Barry. “He had worked incredibly hard to be in shape for the race. We will miss him at the dinner table and on the road.”
The strategy now is to keep Wiggins as rested and protected as possible, maintain his consistency and get him in the right position in time for the 19th stage time-trial.
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