Although he suggested at the Tour de France launch that the Giro d’Italia would likely be his prime target in 2013 and that he would support Chris Froome in the Tour de France, Bradley Wiggins has now backtracked on that and says he now wants to be in a leadership position.
“As it stands I'm probably going to try and win a second Tour de France, so I don't know, maybe we'll have two leaders. That’s more than likely, I guess,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live. “How that's going to work with the team I don't know, it's more Dave's problem, really.”
Like Greg LeMond in the 1985 Tour de France, Froome gave up his chances this year in order to support Wiggins in the Tour. While the latter was stronger in the race’s time trials, Froome appeared better in the mountains and visibly held back on several occasions when it appeared that he could ride clear of Wiggins.
With both riders ambitious to do as well as possible next July, team boss Dave Brailsford could be facing a headache in managing both and ensuring the best for the team.
Wiggins has said that it’s up to the team principal to determine how things play out. “It's just how we service both mouths. Like I said that's more a problem for Dave to figure out, but my goal is to win the Tour next year,” he said.
“Whether that is realised or not I don't know really, we're still in this planning phase at the moment, deciding each race, what we're going to do next year, how we are going to go about training to do that.”
He added that it was now undecided whether or not he would do the Giro d’Italia.
Wiggins beat Froome by three minutes and 41 seconds this year. Even if the latter had been given a green card to ride his own race, it is uncertain whether he could have recouped that amount of time, but he almost certainly would have been closer due to his climbing strength.
However next year’s Tour is more mountainous than the 2012 edition and also has fewer time trial kilometres, thus in theory removing some of Wiggins’ advantage over his rivals. He said that if he was required to work for Froome, that he would do so.
“I wouldn’t be on the start line otherwise,” he said. “Whatever the team strategy is, I'll support that, otherwise you don't take the start line because there will be someone else who is willing to fulfil that job,"
“It's a case of doing what's asked of you on the day, whatever that decision is.”
Froome is yet to react to the news that the exclusive leadership role he was expecting now may no longer be the case.