UK pay-television broadcaster BSkyB is to create a professional British road cycling team managed by the British Olympics cycling team’s performance director Dave Brailsford CBE.
Team Sky will launch in 2010 and is aiming to create the first British winner of the Tour de France within five years. It plans to have a core of British riders, coaches and support staff, and its headquarters will be in Manchester, current home of the GB cycling team. It will recruit an initial squad of around 25 riders during 2009. The team is beginning the search now for other key personnel and commercial partners to support the new team. In its first year, its race schedule will include the Tour of Britain.
Dave Brailsford CBE, team principal for Team Sky, said, “This has been a dream for some time and now Sky is making it happen. It wouldn’t work without them.
“Team Sky will bring to a professional road team the performance principles that have worked so well with the current GB teams; commitment, meticulous planning, the aggregation of marginal gains and a rider-centred philosophy. We want to make heroes, persuade a generation to pull on Team Sky colours and inspire people to ride. This will be an epic story; building a British team to take on the best in professional cycling, and win.”
BSkyB is already a principal partner of British Cycling, the governing body of cycling in the UK.
