British Cycling’s head coach, Shane Sutton, told the paper that he is preparing to relinquish his coaching duties to devote more time to setting up the professional road team. Sutton will remain a member of British Cycling's four-person management group, alongside Chris Boardman, Steve Peters and Dave Brailsford but his new role will free him to tackle the complexities of setting up the road team. It is complex, as he explained, because so many riders have signed two-year contracts, taking them to 2011.
"Cycling in this country is on a high," Sutton told the paper. "You can see that in the quality of the racing and also in the crowds. In the old days when cars were stopped for the race people would complain but here they've been getting out their cars and taking photographs. Maybe it's the Beijing effect but there's a feel-good factor and we really want to carry that momentum into the road side of the sport now.
"We have the expertise to move the plans for the team forward and we have the talent coming through," said Sutton. "The Tour de France seems pretty ambitious, and 2010 seems a long way off but I'm pretty sure that with Dave's [Brailsford] drive and enthusiasm driving it forward it will come to fruition."
Although no main sponsor has been announced, it is expected that Sky Sports, which is sponsoring British Cycling from grass-roots schemes to elite track racing, will be confirmed as the backer, committing up to £24 million for four years.
Chief executive of the Tour of Britain, Hugh Roberts, also confirmed that that his organisation will run a series of 10 televised town-centre races next year, which will be held over five weeks from the last week of May and the whole of June. In addition, Roberts said that that next year's Tour of Britain could be extended from eight to nine days, with the start likely to be in Yorkshire.
