MARK Cavendish is being targeted to ride alongside triple Olympic gold medallist Bradley Wiggins for Team Sky after his performance in the Tour de France.
Cav’s five stage wins in this year's Tour, on top of his ten previous stage victories, led Team Sky manager Dave Brailsford to go public on his aims for the Manxman to join his team.
“Who wouldn’t want Cav? He’s one of the biggest names in the sport, if not the biggest. He has an X Factor - few have. He speaks his mind and he has huge lows and highs. But he always ends up smiling, the guy is a born winner and cycling’s very happy to have him.”
Brailsford believes he can field both Cavendish and Wiggins together and make a dual attempt at a podium place for Wiggins and the sprinters’ green jersey for Cavendish.
Cavendish has a year left on his HTC-Columbia contract but Wiggins was already signed to Garmin when Sky recruited him. Brailsford said, “For our purposes we could devote our energies to someone like Cav in the sprints and then switch priorities back to Brad when we hit the mountains, where Cav just has to finish the stages.”
So far, Cavendish has remained silent on Brailsford’s comments.
