Having taken a month away from racing after the Tour de France, Bradley Wiggins will resume competition this Sunday in the GP Ouest France in Plouay. The Briton will be one of Team Sky’s eight riders in the ProTour event, although his lack of recent racing may see him play a supporting role.
The likely leader will be Simon Gerrans, who won the race last year while racing with the Cervélo Test Team.
Wiggins was originally due to return to racing in this week’s Eneco Tour, but a family bereavement saw him change his schedule. His Plouay entry will be part of his buildup for one of his main end of season goals, the Tour of Britain.
Also representing the team will be fellow Briton Russell Downing, who has been called up to replace John-Lee Augustyn. Downing triumphed in the recent Tour de Wallonnie and has a chance to show that he should have been selected for the Vuelta a España.
Sylvain Calzati, Steve Cummings, Serge Pauwels, Nicolas Portal and the in-form Morris Possoni complete the squad.
The race takes place on the same roads as the 2000 world road race championships and is lumpy enough to give climbers a shot. If Wiggins is in good form, he could be prominent, but little is known of his training in recent weeks.
He placed fourth overall in last year’s Tour but was under-par this time, finishing only 24th. He said after the race that he wanted to take a break. However he’s gone back on his earlier statement that he would not compete again until September.
"Since I finished fourth last year at the Tour it's been almost non-stop, because of the saga that went on all through the winter," Wiggins told the Guardian in Paris. “I just feel I need a break. The Tour of Britain will be my only other race this year, then I'll have a proper break and start building towards next year. I've already thought about next year. We know what we have to do, and what we're going to do.”
His words at the time may have been as much about disappointment as they were about fatigue. Hopefully his decision to compete in August will reflect a determination to pick things up and get back on track as a contender for major races.