Dave Brailsford believes Sky’s opening victory in the Vuelta a España provides the perfect launchpad for Chris Froome and his team in the upcoming three weeks of racing, which the Sky director warns could prove “mentally a lot tougher” than the Tour de France.
“We couldn’t get off to a better start, I’m really happy,” Brailsford told Cyclingnews. “Everyone comes into the Vuelta from different kinds of angles, some people have focused directly on it, others have come in from Rio, so there’s always a bit of a question mark as to where everybody’s at.
“Obviously we’ve got some very good team time triallists in the team, but it’s all about putting it together. I don’t know why, but occasionally we can do some brilliant team time trials, occasionally we’re pretty wide of the mark, we’ve got a pretty big bandwidth. So it’s just a fantastic way to get off to a great start and bring the lads together.”
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In terms of individual Sky riders, Brailsford was particularly satisfied for race leader “Pete Kennaugh. “He’s put a really consistent block of training together. He’s worked really hard and it’s nice to see him back at that level, he was one of the driving forces,” Brailsford said.
“It was nice to see Michal Kwiatkowski driving it there, too, and Froomey’s come back from Rio and hit the ground running, so I’m very happy about that.”
With three weeks of hard racing to come and an overall leader’s jersey already in the team, Sky will have to think hard about how best to play out their early overall strategy. In the short-term, Sunday’s flatter stage – though ‘flat’ is a relative term in the very hilly region of Galicia, and there are over 2,000 metres of vertical climbing on the stage – will be followed by Monday’s first uphill finish, the short but steep ascent to Ezaro, with sections at 30 percent.
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