Sir Dave Brailsford, regarded as one of the foremost sporting coaches in the world since he is responsible for the rise of the British cycling over the past two decades and a rapid success of the Team Sky project resulting with two consecutive Tour the France titles won by his riders Bradley Wiggins and Christopher Froome respectively, is forced to review his role in the national federation following the World Track Championships in Colombia.
With Team Sky facing entirely different challenges after it became one of the major forces of the professional peloton over past two years, and a high expectations concerning performances of the British national team at the next Olympic Games to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, Brailsford is anxious not to stretch himself too much, as combining two roles of British Cycling performance director and Team Sky general manager has increasingly become difficult to manage and nothing suggests the trend would reverse in the near future.
"I think it's fair to say the size of the challenge at Team Sky has grown over the last few years," Brailsford said ahead of the world championships in Cali on Feb 26-March 2.
"It was a big challenge in the first couple of years just to get it up and running from scratch. But the nature of the challenge has changed, winning the Tour twice has put us on the map globally.
"The wavelength in British Cycling is that four-year period, really, whereas with Team Sky it is a bit more like an annual sporting season where we have the Tour de France every year which is like an Olympics every year. That demands a constant level of focus and attention.
"I would say it is getting more and more difficult and I think post-worlds it is always a good time to sit back and review and see where I'm at."
Even though a final decision is yet to be made, Brailsford is aware that the problem has to be solved before his exceptive to some extent responsibilities would have a negative influence on performances of both the British national team and Team Sky.
"Nothing drastic [has been decided]," he said.
"It is just a question of continually managing the situation. I don't want to get to the point where I'm diluted – where I'm stretched so broadly that I'm diluting my own impact.”
Team Sky general manager once again emphasized, how important it is to put the British Cycling in the ideal position ahead of the next Olympic Games, as the expectations will be exceptionally high after their strong performances in London and as a consequence of the rising popularity of cycling in Great Britain.
"The thing I am concerned about is to make sure the British cycling team is in the best possible shape it could be heading in to Rio and that I feel that I'm contributing fully to make sure that happens. If I was occupying a space and for whatever reason I didn't feel I was optimising what I could do then I would change my role so that someone could be maximising that particular part."
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