Britain’s Chris Froome sealed his third Tour de France title after finishing safely on the final stage of the race, with Germany’s André Greipel powering to victory in the final sprint.
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He next flies to Rio with a chance to better Wiggins’ haul as he competes in the men’s road race and time trial.
But Brailsford, the mastermind of Team Sky’s four Tour wins in five years, says the 31-year-old Kenya-born Briton has the Vuelta, or Tour of Spain, on his agenda too.
While Froome was confirmed as the overall victor, Tinkoff’s Sagan wrapped up his fifth straight victory in the points classification.
“This is one special team and I’m proud to be a part of it”.
Froome showed during this Tour that he can do more than simply wear out rivals on summit finishes and that bodes well for the one-day race, which is usually so unpredictable. However, it was his unerring consistency in the stages between that extended his lead and kept the likes of Bardet and Quintana at bay.
Other than the Games, though, Froome said there is no point expecting him to start branching out from his specialities as the Tour remains for him the be all and end all.
It meant he found himself memorably running to the finish line.
He was also second in the race in 2014.
Porte, who rode last year’s Tour as Froome’s superdomestique at Sky, praised his old training partner.
Froome also courted controversy on stage eight when he pushed away a spectator after becoming concerned that the flag the fan was carrying was close to flickering between his wheels and handlebars.
Yesterday’s largely ceremonial final stage began with Froome riding alongside 23-year-old Adam Yates – fourth overall and Britain’s first victor of the Best Young Riders ranking – as well as the leaders of the other classifications at the head of the pack.
“It has been an incredible few weeks”.
“Chris Froome is a very great champion”, said the Belgian. “Vive le Tour, Vive la France”, Froome told the crowd in French during the trophy ceremony, referring to the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Nice.
“My victory has come in the backdrop of a number of tragedies and my thoughts go again to those who lost their lives in those tragedies”. The values of sport are so important to a free society.
Wiggins has sympathy with any clean Russian athletes denied a spot because, at the 2007 Tour de France, he never made it to Paris because his Cofidis teammate Christian Moreni failed a drugs test.
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Only two other riders now racing have won the Tour, Alberto Contador twice, in 2007 and 2009 and Vincenzo Nibali in 2014, but Froome is ready for more. “I’m obviously relying on my good form from the Tour and hoping that I have got the legs on the day, but for sure, I’m going to be watching [Vincenzo] Nibali, watching [Alejandro] Valverde closely and, hopefully, if I stick around where they are, I will be in the right place”.
