In an interview with BBC Sport, Great Britain’s cycling coach Shane Sutton says he is expecting four leading Brit’s to join Team Sky.
Team Sky, sponsored by media organization BSkyB, is set to launch for 2010 and intends to create a British winner in the Tour de France by 2014.
Sutton told the BBC that he expects Garmin-Slipstream’s David Millar and Bradley Wiggins to come on board with the program, as well as Steve Cummings and Geraint Thomas from Team Barloworld.
“All these guys are going to move on to the Sky pro road team, maybe I shouldn’t have said that!” Sutton said to BBC.
Millar is a part owner of the Garmin-Slipstream squad, so the revelation could simply be a sponsorship change rather than a poaching. If that is the case, then whether it will managed by Britain’s Olympic performance director Dave Brailsford is another question.
Sutton also has his eye on Mark Cavendish, but didn’t make the claims that he did with the other four top riders.
“When Mark wants to come home… we can accommodate and we’ll make sure there’s a team good enough for Mark,” Sutton said.
At the very least, the formation of Team Sky will add some needed jobs to the ranks of professional cycling.