Sky’s the Limit: Wiggins and Cavendish: The Quest to Conquer the Tour de France

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Richard Moore. Sky’s the Limit: Wiggins and Cavendish: The Quest to Conquer the Tour de France

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By this point, Mark Cavendish had been withdrawn by his T-Mobile team, who were keen not to overburden their hot young prospect, but Geraint Thomas was still riding, and riding strongly. The youngest rider in the race made it to Paris, in 139th place. He was second from last, but he appeared to have something to spare, and he cut a relaxed figure in the mornings before stage-starts, apparently unfazed by what was going on around him, his mood consistent and his understated humour intact. David Millar compared him to ‘one of the penguins in Madagascar.’ He meant the animated film, ‘where the penguins appear all cute and cuddly, but that disguises a core of steel and a real malevolent streak.’ The highlight of Thomas’ Tour had been an early stage into Montpellier, when the Welshman led the peloton at high speed in the closing kilometres, helping to set up his South African teammate, Robbie Hunter, for the sprint victory. It underlined his ability, his class.

The potential of Thomas and Cavendish, strongly hinted at during their debut season in the professional ranks in 2007, gave Brailsford grounds for optimism and acted as a counterweight to the ‘doom and gloom’ that, to so many other fans and observers of professional cycling, seemed so pervasive. But with the sport at such a low ebb – reaching its lowest point, perhaps, in December 2007, when the German communications giant T-Mobile withdrew their backing of Cavendish’s team – Brailsford might have argued that the time was right to get involved. It could be called the logic of the property market: buy when the prices are low.

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