Dan Martin can hear his phone ringing from across the room. His legs, still nursing the fatigue and weariness that only a Grand Tour can inflict, slowly twitch into life and pick him up from the sofa as he limps towards the buzzing device.
“Hello, Dan? It’s Dave Brailsford here. Have you got a moment?”
It’s a few days after the Tour de France and Martin, fresh from finishing sixth overall in Paris, has been wading through offers from teams looking to lure him into their kit for 2018. Brailsford’s Team Sky are in the running but so too are UAE Team Emirates, while Trek Segafredo, Katusha, and Dimension Data have also made approaches.
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During their phone call, Brailsford congratulates Martin on his performance in the Tour, spells out the role he would have within Sky – the opportunities and the responsibilities – and briefly talks race programmes. It boils down to this: join us, work for Froome at the Tour, have your chances in week-long races, and we’ll win together. As Martin ends the call, amicably of course, he realises he has a few important decisions to make.
***
It’s the second rest-day at the 2017 Giro d’Italia and Martijn Berkhout of SEG Cycling touches down in Italy. In his hand is a briefcase stuffed with rider proposals, a list of appointments as long as his arm, and a laptop full of data on almost every rider, every team, and every race. For an agent of Berkhout’s calibre – who counts the likes of Martin, Bauke Mollema and Sep Vanmarcke among his clients – this is one of the most important periods of the season.
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