The Team Sky captain confirms what everyone knows – but which hasn’t been announced: Cav is coming home.
By Joe Lindsey
One of the expected consequences of the rise of the 2012 “super teams” – the richly funded outfits with well-stocked talent cupboards like BMC, RadioShack-Nissan, and Sky is a luxury problem.
That is, when your roster is so packed with talent, how do you give everyone equal opportunities? That was the subject of a Thursday story in the UK’s Guardian by Richard Williams, where Team Sky captain Bradley Wiggins conceded that either he or another of the team’s stars may have to sacrifice goals in the Tour de France for success in the 2012 Olympics.
Nothing odd about that. What was a little odd was which star teammate he was talking about: current HTC-Highroad rider Mark Cavendish, whose move to Sky for 2012 is widely anticipated but which hasn’t been formally announced.
Wiggins’ openness is of a piece with former vice president Al Gore, who chattily let slip this week that a new iPhone is coming, as soon as October.
Gore, who is now in his eighth year as a member of Apple’s board of directors, likely knows of what he speaks, as does Wiggins. And neither move is a shock; websites have been pegging rumors of iPhone 5 release dates for months, and been mooting Cav’s likely transfer to Sky for even longer – since Wiggins’ own mid-contract shift from Garmin.
That said, both comments are inconvenient truths for the companies in question. Apple would like to be in charge of its own marketing, as much as Sky would like to pull the strings on what is announced when.
With Cavendish, the longer the announcement is held off, the more I wonder what’s going on. With HTC formally folding at the end of the year, riders’ contracts will all cease, no matter what the original term. Cav’s was up anyway.
And HTC’s contracts forbid riders to speak publicly about their new teams, but that clause had a September 1 expiration date; from that standpoint, both Cavendish and Sky are free to announce his signing at any time.
So that it hasn’t happened yet could be for one of three reasons: Another of Cavendish’s contracts is somehow preventing them from making a formal announcement; the team is timing the announcement for maximum effect (possibly after a rainbow jersey on Sunday?); or the contract isn’t signed yet and the two sides are still haggling over particulars.
The longer it goes, the more likely it is that it’s reason No. 3, and the more likely it is that something goes pear-shaped with the deal in general. (I would, however, be very surprised to see Cavendish end up anywhere else.)
Even if that happens, though, Wiggins still has some room to catch up to Gore on clumsily stated claims that get blown out of proportion. Suggestions: that he spearheaded a cleanup of the Thames, and invented the metric system.