Will Cav leave Sky?

[NotthatJasonKenny]

Voeckler will retire from bicycling to play Mork in a CanalPlus French-language remake of the 70s TV hit.

I thought it was just me that thought he looked like a young Robin Williams!

I'm new to the sport but wasn't there something last year about the course having been virtually designed for Cav to win the green jersey?

I think this year for Cav was about the Olympics, the tour was almost a warm up. After the Olympics I'm betting he will look at his options and if a team came to him with credible ambitions to build a team around him he will go for it. It will have to be credible because it looks like Sky have the set up to dominate with Wiggo and Froome alternating wins.

Then again I know very little about it.

 

[johnr]

This appeared in velonews about Chris Froome and his future

http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/07/news/whats-next-for-chris-froome_230893

It sums up the cash and possible tactical options of various teams which I think are also relevant to Cav.

I think there's a couple of other things to be considered too:

• will the ASO and the UCI try messing with courses/rules
• has the international pharmaceutical community got a contribution to make to the less scrupulous (Horner seems to be getting his retaliation in first with his 'fans are trying to dope us' quote)

SKY seem to have rewritten the book on team structure and preparation. Unless there's a lot of cash or guarantees of new structures on a different team, it's not clear to me that any of the SKY heroes would automatically gain a lot elsewhere.

 

[raindog]

Cav is paid 2.5 million I think? Is there another team willing to equal that?

 

[perplexed]

With Cav on board, pretty much any team will be able to increase the worth of the sponsorship slots on the jersey, so their budget will increase anyway I'd have thought.

 

[Chuffy]

With Cav on board, pretty much any team will be able to increase the worth of the sponsorship slots on the jersey, so their budget will increase anyway I'd have thought.

Is this the same Cav who rode for HTC who folded because they couldn't find a new sponsor? I'm not sure it's as simple as 'we want to buy Cav, give us more ££'.

 

[rich p]

Is this the same Cav who rode for HTC who folded because they couldn't find a new sponsor? I'm not sure it's as simple as 'we want to buy Cav, give us more ££'.

Although, to be scrupulously fair, there were rumours at the time that the sponsors wouldn't come on board because Cav was almost certainly going to Sky.

 

[Chuffy]

Although, to be scrupulously fair, there were rumours at the time that the sponsors wouldn't come on board because Cav was almost certainly going to Sky.

True, although had they found a new sponsor they'd have been able to keep the team together and Cav might have stayed. Chicken and egg really.

 

[Cheddar George]

"While I understand transfer rumors are fun in sports, cycling is built on fragile foundation of sponsorship $$$. rumors kill sponsorship" Jonathan Vaughters

I think there is going to be some serious reevaluation at a number of teams concerning GC or stage win ambitions, offers will be made to Cav but i think it will depend more on what quality of team they are prepared to build for him. I think SKY was the right decision at the time but long term i would hope that he can get a team built around the astounding talent that he has.

 

[smutchin]

I d like to see the G man leave sky .

Interesting! Why do you say that?

As a fully paid-up member of the Geraint Thomas fan club, I would love to see him being pushed as a GC contender with the full weight of the team behind him - I reckon he's potentially better than Wiggins or Froome (he seems to me to have more of a leader's temperament than Froome). If Sky won't do that for him, then maybe he should move, but I thought they were grooming him for a future leadership role.

d.

 

[johnr]

If Nibali leaves Liquigas, could they become a 'green jersey team' backing Sagan for TdF purposes? Surely any team looking at looking at headhunting one of the SKY midfield, would face demands for a complete and expensive restructuring. I think they'd be better off going after the backroom staff in the first instance.

 

[smutchin]

I think they'd be better off going after the backroom staff in the first instance.

This is a very good point. I read something the other day that suggested Sky have spent more money overall than other teams but proportionally much less on rider salaries than the likes of BMC and OPQS, ie most of the money is spent on infrastructure and coaching. I think BMC blew most of their 2012 budget on Phil Gilbert.

Anyway, is there even going to be a Liquigas (or whatever) team next year? I understood they were having trouble finding a new sponsor à la HTC. (Can't remember where I read that though - may well just be idle speculation.)

d.

 

[monnet]

I might as well add my tuppence.

Like Dellzeq, I was surprised he went to Sky in the first place. But it's started to make sense recently.

Cav rides for Sky, he accepted that this year he wouldn't get the support he was used to for the Tour BUT if anything went wrong on the GC, he'd get helped out and a couple of stages (notably the final) would be earmarked for him. He took the offer of a couple fewer stages with the carrot of a dedicated team for the Olympics. I know the Olympics is 'Team GB' etc. but Sky and British Cycling are one and the same, so he'd get a full support from his salary men. So, at the end of the season he gets a couple more Tour stages and the Olympic RR title - which will go nicely with his World's title. Lovely, and all this contributes to his place in the record books.

The next bit is the bit I don't think anyone really considered (Cav or the Sky management). After you've promised him a once in a lifetime achievement to soften the blow of not dedicating your Tour effort for him in season 1, what do you offer in season 2? It seems there's not a lot. Cav's hopes are then on the variables of Wiggins not defending his title and a less dedicated effort being put around Froome (which seems unlikely for many reasons).

So, as a rider who wants to win I don't see he has much choice. Why, in the peak of his career, would he stay at a team that won't offer him full support? He wants wins and he wants his name in the history books - this season has promoted those aims, another season with Sky seems unlikely to. So who to? In my opinion, it is OPQS. Brian Holm is there, they always got on (unlike with Brailsford and other HTC backroom staff went as well), there's no real rival sprinter. The likes of Martin are already there to pick up where they left off at HTC. In addition Cav will be looking for more classics wins (it's that place in history), OPQS know how to win classics and Mr Boonen is as good a person as any to teach him the ropes.

But, I said he'd never go to Sky, so what do I know? Perhaps he won't leave either.

 

[Willo]

Not read the whole thread, but for me it made sense for him to be in the Sky fold in Olympic Year so the programme/training was fully aligned etc. to give him the best chance in the road race (and as we know, that equally suits Brailsford/Sutton who like to have the GB riders in their view throughout the year so to speak). Rob Hayles was pushed on the question during Eurosport's coverage of the TT and, while I can't remember his exact words, he did say that personally he felt he would have to move on to do what he likes best - focusing on stage wins with a team set up to support that. Given Hayles' friendship / role with Cavendish that was quite telling I thought. Of course, my Olympic year theory doesn't account for a 3 year contract unless we're moving into an era of 'transfer' style moves a la Wiggins from Garmin.

As has been said, to move there also has to be an attractive proposition in terms of a team assembled for him.

 

[StuAff]

My take:
Dave Brailsford and Shane Sutton have already stated that Sky have broad ambitions for the future. They want to retain the TdF yellow next year, but they also want to go for the slam of all three grand tours and do much better in the spring classics. You can't do that with one nine-man squad, no matter how good, how versatile, that team is, no more than eleven men alone could achieve a league/cup/CL treble (for example). Contador was the last man to win two out of three in the same year (Giro & Vuelta in 2008) but whether he was clean or not.... To do it really, undisputably clean, you need strength in depth, and expertise in depth. The first two seasons were a painful learning curve at times for them (who knows how Wiggo might have done in last year's Tour had he not broken his collarbone), but the masterplan has clearly been working very nicely indeed- from the lower two spots on the podium at the Vuelta to the top two at the Tour.

Cav's focus this year has been on the Olympics, and his training, his season to date and the way he handled certain stages on the Tour, have all been with Saturday in mind. The stages he won in the last three weeks were obviously important, but a secondary concern (for this season only!). Sagan has already been compared to Eddy M in terms of all-round ability (or at least potential), and he's definitely a major threat to future green jersey ambitions, but Cav has already shown he's become a more rounded and stronger overall rider than previous years. He nearly won the points competition on the Giro, had a couple of minor wins, and he certainly wasn't afraid of working for the team on the Tour. Yes, I have no doubt that OPQS, GreenEdge et al would love to add him to their rosters, perhaps they can offer him certain advantages (Garmin and QPQS strike me as the best bets if he wanted to become a Classics challenger, for example), but can any other team offer him what Sky can in terms of the complete package? I find it hard to believe that had it not been an Olympic year (or if the road race had been more helpfully scheduled) that Sky would not have targeted green as well as yellow. The leadout train seemed to do the trick on the occasions where it was deployed.

Same applies to Chris, Edvald, Geraint....if they jump ship, it might work out very well, but they could end up being the big fish in a small, stagnant pond. Sky might be aiming for domination as total as Schumacher and Ferrari's in F1 was for the best part of a decade, but there's a big difference- Schumi's team mates generally got the second step on the podium, time after time. In pro racing there's rather more opportunity to spread the top step around a bit. If if anyone can keep that much talent happy, it's Dave Brailsford.

 

[rich p]

I've just liked two opposing threads, both of which seemed to make perfect sense. My vote is to sit on the fence then!