Sir Bradley Wiggins’s former coach Shane Sutton has added to the speculation that the former Tour de France winner may ride next year’s Giro d’Italia. Sutton said in his view racing the Italian Tour would provide the ideal springboard for Wiggins’s ambitions to take the world hour record next June and return to the GB pursuit squad for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
“The ideal preparation would be a couple of weeks in the Giro, just like we’ve done before with [Geraint] Thomas and [Peter] Kennaugh. That’s something that Brad and the team will need to decide on,” Sutton told cyclingnews.com. Wiggins rode the Giro as preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games, while Kennaugh and Thomas rode the race to build up to the London Olympics in 2012.
Wiggins, who abandoned the 2013 Giro sick and injured, has yet to comment on rumours, although a source close to the rider it was not currently on the radar, and Team Sky have yet to make any comment. The British squad are currently working on their race schedule for next year, with the recent announcement that Chris Froome will lead at the Tour de France.
It remains unclear how long Wiggins will be contracted to the Team Sky World Tour squad for, as his precise plans for 2015 are only expected to be made public in the next couple of weeks. What is most likely is that he will ride for Sky until at least the Paris-Roubaix classic next April, which is expected to be his last major objective for the British squad.
After that he is likely to transfer to the newly formed Team Wiggo squad which he is founding to provide him and his future team pursuit colleagues with road racing during the run-in to Rio.
