Wiggins close to the limit with Sky as Froome finds favour

THE simmering power struggle at the top of Team Sky has swung dramatically in Chris Froome's favour in recent weeks.

Chris Froome

AT the Chatel ski station in the Haute-Savoie mountains in France, Chris Froome and the team-mates who will start the Tour de France with him a fortnight from today have been putting the finishing touches to their campaign. Wives and partners have been welcome. The atmosphere has been buoyant.

If you are wondering where the first British Tour de France winner is, the national treasure with the sideburns, he has been training solo in Majorca, Spain, about 1000km south of Chatel, although he could not be farther from the picture if he tried.

From those heights of 2012, it is as if Sir Bradley Wiggins has fallen off a cliff. The question, now, is where he will land. We know that he will not ride this year's Tour de France. In the Welcome to Yorkshire tourist authority offices, where they are busy making preparations for the county to host the start of the 2014 Tour, they are fretting about whether he will be there for that. Certainly, you cannot say for sure whether Wiggins will lead Team Sky in a Grand Tour again.

The simmering power struggle at the top of Team Sky has swung so dramatically in Froome's favour in recent weeks that the team have offered him a contract extension. His present deal ties him in for another year, but the offer of an extension shows that Sky see him as the future - and they would be mad if they did not.

Other teams see him as the future too. No official approach is legal until after August 1, but Froome has had a number of opposition team managers fiercely fluttering their eyelids at him since last summer.

Rumours spilt into print last month, when La Gazzetta dello Sport, the Italian sports newspaper, linked Froome with BMC. Although BMC are top heavy with general classification top dogs (Cadel Evans, Tejay van Garderen), they have made their long-term interest known.

This is all leverage for Froome, although nothing buys favour as much as form and, with four wins from five races this year, the Briton is making himself invaluable. At 28, he is also five years younger than Wiggins and he is low maintenance. Froome is a very manageable athlete, whereas Wiggins has been deciding this year which training camps he will or will not attend. Froome is also more consistent; Wiggins has up years and down years. And Froome's performances are flatlining at a very high level.

So Sky now see Froome as their future. But also their present. And when you factor in Richie Porte, Froome's close friend and training partner, you wonder where Wiggins fits in.

Porte is being groomed as another Grand Tour leader and he wants to lead Team Sky in the Giro d'Italia next year. Unless Froome seriously messes up the forthcoming Tour de France, he will surely lead Sky in the 2014 Tour.

Where does that leave Wiggins? Apparently showing some very good form in Majorca. Which raises the question: could he not have ridden the Tour de France after all? And why withdraw him from selection a month before the race started? Why not give him the opportunity to prove his fitness after the knee injury? The blogosphere has been populated with conspiracy theorists doubting the veracity of the knee problem. He had, after all, been riding four hours a day before the news of the injury broke. Given the antipathy between Wiggins and Froome, this seemed the most convenient of injuries.

However, it was not made up. The diagnosis came from a knee specialist in Leeds. But it also triggered a notably hasty withdrawal of Wiggins from Tour de France consideration - and allowed Sky to pursue a Tour campaign without factions and disharmony on the team bus.

What does a superstar cyclist do, then, when left on the outside of a Tour campaign? The obvious answer would be to lead Sky's assault on the Vuelta a Espana in August. However, Wiggins has made it clear that he does not want to do that.

Sky could insist. He is, after all, their highest-paid employee. But he is not malleable.

So that appears to rule out the Vuelta. If you then look ahead - with Porte likely to lead the 2014 Giro team and Froome set to lead the 2014 Tour team - it becomes reasonable to ask if Wiggins will lead a Sky team in a Grand Tour again. Will the Tour de France winner even ride again in that race? And have we seen the best of him?

Wiggins's answer will come at the World Championships in Florence in September, when the time-trial remains his big ambition. However, that is a national event in which Wiggins will be representing British Cycling. When he will lead Team Sky again in a significant event, is impossible to know.