Brailsford Reaches for Sky to Promote Dream of Tour De France Team

Dave Brailsford's dream of a British professional team to ride the Tour de France came a step closer yesterday with confirmation of a multimillion-pound deal under which Sky television will become the principal sponsor of British Cycling until the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The deal has been in the making for only a few weeks but neither Brailsford, British Cycling's performance director, nor Robert Tansey, Sky's director of marketing, would deny that the company's name may be on the kit of Brailsford's team when the Tour challenge does get off the ground. "There is a chance," said Brailsford. "What I will tell you is that the Tour team will happen. Who becomes the principal partner of the Tour team we'll wait and see."

"The pro team, because of its scale, will be a separate entity," said Tansey. "How that money will be raised is yet to be decided."

Brailsford added: "There are many potential sponsors. I've been bowled over by the interest in cycling out there in the wider community. The planets are aligning for cycling at the moment. There are several major partners interested in this [Tour] project. We're going to focus on the Olympics for now; we'll look at that when we come back."

The announcement was made yesterday shortly before the Olympic team's media open day, giving a further boost to a Beijing squad which Brailsford said includes "the best group of riders assembled for any British [cycling] team in history". This was highlighted by victories last week in a sprint grand prix in Erfurt, Germany, for Chris Hoy and in the Tour of Brittany for Emma Pooley, confirming that they are on form for the men's sprint and the women's road race.

With the Tour team remaining a longer-term goal, another option will be for Sky to back a team of the best track racers for the World Cup season. In those events, to enable Britain to field as many riders as possible, cyclists on the lottery-funded program are usually split into GB and one or two trade squads, sponsored most notably by the sports drink company SIS.

Asked if Sky Sports would be covering cycle racing, Tansey said: "We would not have gone into this without that consideration. There are certain events that we don't have and can't have but if you look at track cycling it is incredibly exciting on television. Whether it's existing events or creating new ones, that's absolutely something we will consider."

Although the Tour de France is tied to the European Broadcasting Union until 2014 there are a host of other events. On the track alone there is the winter-long Revolution track series and the International Cycling Union's World Cup series, although the British round this winter will be covered by the BBC. "At this stage anything is possible," said Tansey, and that could apparently include tie-ins with other arms of Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp.

Brailsford said yesterday that the squad he would take to Beijing would present a major test to other nations, although he would not say whether the team's medal target exceeded the six stipulated by UK Sport. "The rest of the world will need to be racing well and on song if they are to challenge us for medals. This is more of a racing team than we took to Athens, and compared to that Games the difference is unbelievable when you look at our strength in depth," he said. At a rough count, Britain and their new sponsor have realistic medal hopes in a dozen events.