British Cycling programmes director Andy Harrison has denied any suggestion of friction between Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish ahead of the Rio Olympics track programme beginning on Thursday.
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Cavendish suggested earlier this week that Wiggins’s desire “to be the hero” at the Olympics meant that he would not ride the team pursuit in qualification – the reason why he left the Tour de France early.
The duo have endured an up and down relationship through the years, and Cavendish has now suggested he was misled into quitting the 2016 Tour de France to join the team’s holding camp in Newport, Wales.
The old penal colony pipped Britain to the rainbow jersey at the track world championships on London’s Pringle track in March, but the Brits are understood to have been smashing records in training. He told Sky Sports that anything other than gold would be a disappointment, adding: “I think I’m setting myself up that if I didn’t win, I’ve failed”. As fifth man for the team pursuit, he admitted he was very much a reserve and probably wouldn’t ride unless something happened to one of the first-choice quartet.
This, Cavendish went on to say, had inadvertently hampered his preparation for the omnium as racing all 21 stages of the Tour would have been of benefit to his omnium build-up.
“Brad has been super-stressed”.
‘I’m just doing the omnium stuff now. He wants to be a hero and all that.
Admitting that the situation was a little bit disappointing, he emphasised that the team pursuit was “a bonus” anyway and that the omnium remained his main goal. At the end of the day I qualified for the Olympics in the omnium and so I’ll concentrate on the omnium. That’s what I was aiming for the whole time. With the women’s team pursuit changed to four riders over 4km after London 2012, the Brit took to the new format easily, but things have stalled since.
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“These are two of the greatest riders Britain has ever produced and they’ve both got big personalities and, to be honest, I’m more interested in what they do on the bike rather than what they say in public”.
