BY FRIDAY familiar clouds seemed to be gathering over the Tour de France. One doping case - involving a rider who left the race in an ambulance last Sunday - prompted German TV to abandon their coverage of the Tour mid-race, while a second, involving race leader Michael Rasmussen, threatened to be even bigger.
What the sport needs, says British Cycling's performance director, Dave Brailsford, is a root-and-branch overhaul - new people and new ideas, especially in the way the teams are run. Which is where Brailsford could come in. The man who masterminded B
ritain's spectacular transformation from also-rans to the strongest track cycling team in the world wants to apply his talent and ambition to road cycling. The ultimate aim would be to win the Tour de France with a team made up mainly of British riders - and with an absolute commitment to clean sport.
"It's a project I'm actively working on," said Brailsford, who made a flying visit to the Tour this week to check on the four British riders still in the race - Mark Cavendish withdrew last Sunday - and sort out a few of their contracts. On the prospect of a British team, Brailsford is his usual enthusiastic self. Some of this owes to the success of the London Grand Depart. "I was inspired by that, but it's something I've been thinking about for a long time," he explained. It costs £3m-£8m a year to run a pro team, but I don't think finance is the biggest obstacle. We need 20-plus riders. But we're not going to be able to do it until the riders are good enough - until we have that critical mass of British riders. There are young lads coming through and there's plenty of talent, that's not the issue. It's a question of how quickly they mature. I've felt for a long time that Cav [Cavendish] and Geraint [Thomas] could come through - but thinking it and seeing it are two different things. I see them now and think: it's on. It's not a pipe dream any more.
"There's so much doom and gloom, so much negativity, around the Tour, but from my perspective, if we did anything it'd be 100% clean. We've got this generation coming through that don't want to cheat. It's about doing things in a different way, which is what a lot of pro teams struggle with. Some of them don't even see their riders between races - it's bonkers. Our philosophy is that the riders are at the centre. We look after them."
Brailsford thinks a British pro team - there hasn't been one in the Tour since 1987 - could happen within the next five years. "I'd like to think it'd be possible to do it before Brad [Wiggins] and Dave [Millar] have retired. We'd be innovative and we'd do it clean. In the first instance we'd aim to be competitive, but ultimately we'd want to win. It wouldn't fit our mentality to think any other way."
