Having said prior to the London Olympics that he might relinquish his role as Great Britain's performance director and focus solely on his work as Team Sky principal, Dave Brailsford has said that he intends to keep both posts going forward and will steer British riders towards the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
Now 48 years of age, Brailsford has said that he would only walk away if he can no longer focus on the tasks at hand.
“I'm not sure that I was ever going to let go and walk away (completely),” he said, according to PA. “In my mind I like to think that there was a safety valve where you can just go 'Okay, let's look at where we are going'.
“We might structure it slightly differently, we might think about longer-term succession planning. I'd like to think we're building something which is sustainable; coming up to Rio if I just disappeared off sideways nobody would really notice and it would just carry on.”
However he suggested the only way he would relinquish the role is if he no longer had the passion to do the job. “If I wake up and I'm not motivated, I'm not excited by it, I will step aside, because somebody else should be doing it,” he said.
Brailsford said that he had received offers from other sports and also for business, but that he wasn’t ready to leave cycling.
British riders have had a superb season, with Bradley Wiggins’ victory in the Tour de France, Sky’s victory in the WorldTour team classification, and an Olympic campaign which saw the country take seven out of the ten track titles, as well as Wiggins’ TT gold medal.
British Cycling executive director Peter King has carried out a post-Olympic review, speaking to over 40 people who were involved in the Games. He spoke to riders and staff alike, and said that he got important feedback.
“Those I did speak to gave me a fair cross-section of the views of the athletes, the views of the coaches and the support staff, too. There were some interesting views, interesting perceptions and some of the conclusions, I think, will prove to be quite interesting."
Meanwhile a key member of British Cycling’s support team has been tempted away from the sport, and will instead use his knowledge and experience to help the Rugby Football Union to prepare for the 2015 World Cup.
The sports scientist Matt Parker has been head of marginal gains at British Cycling since 2009 and is credited as one of those who helped Bradley Wiggins to develop from a track and time trial specialist into a big stage race rider.
His loss follows the decision of Chris Boardman, Great Britain’s head of research and development to leave that position. According to the Guardian, there are suggestions that one of GB’s coaches could become a directeur sportif with Team Sky.
The squad recently accepted the resignation of Bobby Julich and Steven de Jongh, who both admitted using banned substances as professionals, as well as that of Sean Yates. The latter said he was leaving the sport due to health and family reasons and that his departure was not an indication of past doping.