| Sky's team chief promises changes after 'humbling' Tour de France Dave Brailsford to bring in new riders, new backroom staff and a new way of doing things for Britain's top cycling team in 2011As Team Sky's first season in professional cycling drew to a close, the team principal Dave Brailsford today admitted that this year's Tour de France debut had been a "humbling" experience and said changes will be made to the way the team prepare for the 2011 event – as well as changes to rider roster and back-up staff, which are being kept secret."The key thing we've learned from a planning point of view is getting the right riders to the right races with the right goals. It's an obvious thing to say but it will be better next year. It's an experience thing. We've relied on the opinions of others and we've tried to have a broad church of opinion, to our detriment with certain team selections"Sky aimed high in their first season – too high for some observers – but as Brailsford points out: "If you want to do something worthwhile you win big or you lose big. You have to just put your neck on the line and be judged.""The Tour didn't go to plan for Brad [Bradley Wiggins], but that was the same for a lot of people. Geraint Thomas did perform very well, which can't be overlooked, and Thomas Lovkvist had a good Tour." Brailsford said the team are working on a different approach for Wiggins for next year. "He was under a lot of pressure, there was a weight of expectation which was hard for everyone.""The Tour was the biggest disappointment," Brailsford said. "The guys all gave it 100% but Edvald Boasson Hagen had lost two months racing before the Tour, Simon Gerrans crashed out, Brad's performance was where it was, and plan B didn't quite come off. But we're not going to hide, we're going to say what would we have done differently."Foremost among those changes will be Wiggins's programme: he is unlikely to race the Giro d'Italia before the Tour as he did this year. Brailsford said Sky had faced "not hostility but a closing of ranks" among other pro teams. "It's always going to be hard to come in at this level, a lot of people have been in this small world for a long time, but we've built relationships."There are many positives Sky can take from this year. The roadside support and hordes of enthusiastic fans thronging around their bus demonstrate that, whatever the setbacks in the Tour de France and the discussions over the team's tactics in the Tour of Britain, the public are buying into the idea of a British team racing at the highest level. "The enthusiasm is fantastic. There is a huge appetite in Britain for a team to get behind," Brailsford said.Although the British perception is that the Tour alone matters, Sky should finish this season in the top five teams in the world on victory count – although they will be well behind Mark Cavendish's all-conquering HTC-Columbia squad – despite missing the Tour of Spain. Brailsford said the team have stuck to their principle of being "100% clean, and it has worked well".Sky are not revealing who they will add to their roster next year. They have been linked with the Australian prospect Richie Porte, who lies third overall in the Tour of Britain after racing aggressively all week. The team need to sign at least one new directeur sportif to replace Scott Sunderland, who left mid-season.On the British front an obvious signing would be the young time-trial specialist Alex Dowsett, who briefly wore the yellow jersey in the Tour de l'Avenir – a mini Tour de France for under-23s – and who is in the Great Britain team for the world road championships. Dowsett was present at today's Tour of Britain finish as it is near his home in Essex, but he would not comment on his plans for 2011."The team will be stronger next year," Brailsford said, "and there are young guys – Ben Swift, Thomas, Peter Kennaugh, Ian Stannard, Boasson Hagen – that we want to develop as a group. They will be a formidable unit in future."As far as the recent past is concerned, he said: "If you could wind back the clock there are a lot of things we would do differently. The crime would be not to learn from it."Team SkyCyclingWilliam Fotheringhamguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Will Sharman | Small Talk The British hurdler on friendly Cubans, Inception, and being the Cheryl Cole of GladiatorsHello Will. You all right? Good thank you, Small Talk. It's a bit cold here but I'm inside now.Whereabouts are you? I'm in Hucknall, just outside Nottingham.How did you get into hurdling? By mistake really. I just wanted a high jump coach, but the coach that was at the athletic club put me forward for the octathlon, before the decathlon as I was quite young in those days, so I just started practising and getting better and better.So when you were younger you had posters of Dalton Grant on the walls rather than Colin Jackson? I didn't have posters of any of them up on my wall to be honest. I didn't even know who Dalton Grant was. I just enjoyed doing athletics, but I only really knew of the sprinters, Linford Christie, and that was pretty much it. I enjoyed watching it on TV, I just didn't have an awareness of the athletes names.Can you remember the first event you saw was? I only really remember the 100 metres, watching Linford Christie and thinking: "I could beat him." You know when you're young you've got that young invincibility, you just think you can take on the world, you can do anything. I watched these guys doing the 100m and I thought: "I'm sure I could beat all of them – I won the school sports day the other day."You could certainly beat him now. Ha ha, yeah.Were you always going into athletics or were you a decent footballer or rugby player? [Matter-of-factly] Yeah, I was a very good footballer actually. Played for local good sides like Kettering Town youth. We won the regional cup. But I don't really understand the football world as well, because it's not always the case that the best player goes forward, there's other things come into play, and I thought I would've ended up being a footballer, but I'm glad I didn't because athletics is one of them things where what you put in, you get out.You trained with John Anderson, of Gladiators fame back in the day. Did he ever do his "Contender, ready!!!" speech in training? Occasionally. For those athletes who weren't used to seeing him, or they'd travelled far to see him, or it was the last rep of a 100m gruelling session and they wanted a little motivation, John would do something special upon request.And you worked on Gladiators as a timekeeper – what did that entail? I was actually John's sidekick from the very beginning, helping him design the testing procedure, the filter process, for contenders and Gladiators. I also had to record the scores on most of the games, and I had to write the rules for every game, make sure they were clear and understood.So you were almost the Simon Cowell of Gladiators? I think John was more that guy.You'd have to be Cheryl Cole then. Or, heaven forbid, Louis Walsh. Yeah, I'd go for Cheryl.Your list of talents is astonishing, playing the cornet, the piano, having the economics degree … It was all before my athletics – it's one of those things that takes up all your time. They were all avenues I could've potentially gone down, but athletics is the one I went for.You're on Twitter as well. Yeah, I tweet from time to time.No KP-style controversies yet? No, not yet.One of your Tweets said: "The Cubans are an extraordinary set of friendly people." What's the story behind that? I was at a training camp and met these two Cuban decathletes. They arrived in Europe two or three months before the 2009 world championships in Berlin. They didn't have any money. But they arrived for this low key meet, won, then they said to the meeting promoter: "Could you give us somewhere to stay?" So they couldn't afford to stay there, but I suppose the organiser must've helped out. From there they stayed and trained for the world championships, one picked up a bronze medal and the other came fourth I believe.Blimey! It was just a remarkable story of how these guys coming from a communist regime, they can't drive, they can't sign endorsements, but they were incredibly gifted and if they were over here they'd be superstars. But no, they couldn't even afford their accommodation. But then they went to the world championships and wiped the floor with everyone. Lionel spoke English, but the other guy only spoke Spanish. They were both just very warm, very friendly, almost smiling. They didn't even have clothes to jump into after training sessions, so they'd jump into the ice bath in their training clothes, to kind of wash them, and then just drip dry in the Italian sunshine. So it was just: "Wow! Some of us guys are really privileged."Where would we go for a good night out in Nottingham? I don't really get to go on night outs really. But if I do go out I might go to the new cinema complex they've got in Derby, or go to Loughborough to see some of my friends there.So what was the last film you saw at the cinema? Inception. It had a twist in the end that you had to interpret yourself. [Goes on to explain much of the plot.] It's a good film.What's your karaoke song? No, I don't do karaoke. I'm up for it but I'm not a great singer. I don't have the voice.What sort of music do you listen to then? [Distracted] All different music really … but … I've got to wrap things up there because I've got to dash off to the physio, then I've got to do training, then I've got to meet Charles van Commenee, then I've got to head down to Bath. But it's been good chatting.Cheers Will. Bye Small Talk.AthleticsJohn Ashdownguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
San Antonio nets pro soccer franchise The North American Soccer League (NASL) says it has granted an expansion franchise to San Antonio entrepreneur Gordon Hartman. feeds.bizjournals.com |
Spinners leave Australia facing defeat • India 495; Australia 478 & 202-7• Pragyan Ojha and Harbhajan Singh shine for IndiaIndia's spinners combined to put the hosts on top at the end of the fourth day of the second Test against Australia in Bangalore. At stumps Australia were 202 for seven in their second innings, leading by 185 runs with a day remainingPragyan Ojha took three wickets and Harbhajan Singh two, leaving the tourists facing a 2-0 series defeat. On a day when Sachin Tendulkar reached 200 for the sixth time in Tests, Ricky Ponting emerged as Australia's saving grace, his 72 off 117 balls boosting their hopes of levelling the series.Shane Watson and Simon Katich gave Australia a solid start, putting on a 58-run stand at nearly five an over, but spin soon brought India back. First Ojha trapped Watson leg before for 32 and then, three deliveries later, Harbhajan's flighted delivery found Katich's outside edge and he was caught behind for 24.Ojha then sent back Michael Clarke for three, stumped by the wicketkeeper, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, but Ponting steadied the ship, taking charge of proceedings either side of tea and building a 61-run fourth-wicket partnership with Mike Hussey.Hussey ended up being Ojha's third victim of the day, trapped leg before for 20, and Marcus North did not last long, bowled by a teasing Harbhajan delivery for only three. But Ponting remained largely unperturbed, going past his 55th half-century with two successive boundaries off Harbhajan and, with wicketkeeper Tim Paine, frustrated the home side despite a barrage of appeals.However, the Australia captain's innings was brought to a halt by Zaheer Khan, who trapped Ponting leg before, and only a few overs before stumps Shantha Sreesanth got rid of Paine, who had worked his way to a patient 23.Nathan Hauritz (eight) and Mitchell Johnson (seven) remained at the crease at stumps.Earlier, Tendulkar started day four on 191 – with India resuming on 435 for five. However, Peter George ensured a memorable debut, making Tendulkar (214) his first Test victim and triggering a spate of wickets which saw India bowled out for 495, a lead of only 17.India Cricket TeamAustralia cricket teamCricketguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
UCF’s potential move to Big East creates buzz UCF’s potential move to Big East creates buzz feeds.bizjournals.com |