LONDON: Former Tour de France champions Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins will help Team Sky find top gear again next year after the British outfit endured a disappointing 2014, according to boss Dave Brailsford.
After back-to-back Tour victories in the previous two years, Sky went into 2014 confident of re-asserting their dominance but failed to win a stage in the race with 2013 champion Froome crashing out on leg five.
The team also finished the other two grand tours, the Giro d’Italia and Tour of Spain, without a stage victory and struggled in the major one-day races.
“We’d like to win the Tour, we’d like to win a classic,” Brailsford told the BBC.
“And we’d really like to get behind Bradley for a good crack at the Paris-Roubaix race -- I think that would be a really good goal for us.”
Wiggins was left out by Sky for this year’s Tour de France in favour of Froome, someone he has had a frosty relationship with.
The four-time Olympic champion has not raced in a grand tour since pulling out of last year’s Giro and said in July that he would not compete in another.
However, an excellent display by the 34-year-old Wiggins, for Britain not Sky, to win his first world title on the road with a time-trial victory in Spain in September showed he was still a formidable one-day racer.
Brailsford stands by his decision to select the Kenyan-born Froome instead of Wiggins for the Tour de France and said he was not trying “to win a popularity contest”.
The Sky boss was impressed with Froome’s comeback from the broken wrist and hand that ended his Tour defence when the rider came a close second to home favourite Alberto Contador in the Vuelta.
Brailsford said Froome’s best was yet to come and he would battle it out with this year’s elite for the Tour title next year.
“He’s 29, he’s still hungry and committed and there’s still room for improvement,” said the former British Olympic cycling chief.
“There’s no doubt Contador, 2014 Tour winner Vincenzo Nibali, 2014 Giro d’Italia champion Nairo Quintana and Chris are at the top of their games.
“It’s great for the sport. Rather than having just one or two guys up there, you’ve got four who can battle it out, as we saw in Spain,” added Brailsford.REUTERS
