Sky fall: How Brad Wiggins held back bonus payments from Chris Froome

The 2012 Tour de France winner's 14-month delay in giving fellow Briton his share of winnings reveals deep division between pair, says Owen Slot

Chris Froome

THE running sore that developed between Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, the two British Tour de France winners, was allowed to fester for 14 months while Wiggins withheld bonus money to Froome that he paid to the rest of his team.

It has long been the tradition that Tour de France champions share their winnings with their team-mates. However, after winning the Tour in 2012, Wiggins gave a share of his bonus money to all his team-mates on the Tour except Froome. Only when Sir Dave Brailsford, the Team Sky principal, intervened, more than a year later, was the money paid.

It is also tradition for the winner to give his team-mates a yellow jersey, as a token of their contribution to the victory, but Froome did not receive one. In the October after his Tour victory, Wiggins also hosted the Yellow Ball, a charity fundraiser to which the team were invited, although Froome's invitation never arrived.

The two star British riders will be reunited next week when the new year effectively begins for Team Sky at a training camp in Majorca. The history of antipathy between them has been a painful soap opera that has been playing out since Wiggins's victory in the summer of 2012, and Team Sky's management are hoping that Majorca will be a line in the sand with past issues buried and forgotten.

However, according to Michelle Cound, Froome's fiancee and business manager, although Wiggins eventually settled up, the financial transaction was a hollow gesture.

Wiggins won two significant sums of money after his Tour victory. The first was the 450,000 euros ($669) prizemoney paid by ASO, the Tour organiser. This money was paid to Team Sky and was distributed among the riders; Froome did receive his share of that.

The second windfall was his 1 million pounds bonus paid through his contract with Team Sky. Rumours surfaced the next summer that bonuses from this had not been evenly distributed.

Cound told The Times: "People don't necessarily tell each other what bonus they have got. So we didn't know for sure what the situation was."

It was only when Richie Porte, another team-mate, told Froome that he had received a slice that Froome's concerns were confirmed. Some riders got euros 30,000.

"We didn't know what the other riders got," Cound said. "But Brad paid Chris nothing."
Wiggins's failure to pay Froome was reported in a new book, Inside Team Sky, by David Walsh, the journalist who was embedded in the team throughout this year's Tour.

Cound said: "I don't believe Brad ever intended to pay Chris the bonus. I think the reason he did is because he knew it was coming out in the book. Brad paying Chris really doesn't mean that much. It's about a lot more than the sum of money."

The fallout between Wiggins and Froome dates back to two stages on Wiggins's victorious Tour when he questioned Froome's loyalty. A deep frost then set in between the two riders; only when this year's World Championships in Florence loomed, when Wiggins was selected to ride in support of Froome, were serious attempts made to reheat the relationship.

"Brailsford decided it would be better to sort it all out," Cound said. The week before the World Championships, a payment was made from Wiggins's account into Froome's.

Florence, however, did not lead to the building of bridges. Froome's bid to win the world title was a disaster, although Wiggins's efforts to ride in support of him were disastrous, too. As Cound said, there was no rapprochement: "Chris was supposed to sit down with Brad before the worlds and it just never happened."

Brailsford, meanwhile, dismisses the idea that, to work together, Froome and Wiggins need to be friends. He believes their professionalism should be sufficient. In a fascinating passage in Inside Team Sky, Brailsford reveals a course of action he was considering this summer, before Wiggins's injury, when it seemed that Wiggins would be selected to ride the Tour de France in support of Froome.

Brailsford says that he was considering getting the two riders together and asks Wiggins twice if he was prepared to commit to ride for Froome. Wiggins would presumably say yes. Brailsford explains: "Then I would say, 'OK, if you don't follow team orders we will agree to fine you three or four months' wages.' This will be a significant amount of money, maybe as much as a few hundred thousand, and I believed it would concentrate Brad's mind. I was then going to turn to Chris and say: 'Right, Chris, if Brad goes against team orders, I'm going to give you that money.'"

The intention, Brailsford explains, would have been "goal harmony" rather than "team harmony". In Majorca next week, though, team harmony will be very much the focus; as well as their hours out on the road, the team management intend to work with the entire Team Sky group on team values and team beliefs.

Brailsford says that the issue of the bonus payment between the two riders is now dead. "That was a matter for Bradley and Chris and it is now sorted," he said.

The next issue is: what next? Motivation can be an issue for any athlete sated on success; after Wiggins's glory year of 2012, he struggled to perform in 2013. It has not gone unnoticed that, once the 2013 Tour was over, Froome struggled for form. The question stands, therefore: will he return to camp doubly determined to defend his yellow jersey?

And if not, what then? The idea that Wiggins could contest next year's Tour is by no means buried.

The Times