It might have come as a surprise to the majority of people following cycling, but to Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme the news of Bradley Wiggins’ injury enforced absence from this year’s Tour didn’t come as a lightning from a clear blue sky.

Prudhomme said that he had anticipated the possibility that Bradley Wiggins might not ride this year’s race.

“We had a feeling it was coming. It's a half surprise even a quarter of a surprise after he pulled out of the Giro. I was in England last week and the press gave the impression that it was more serious than we first thought,” Prudhomme told L’Equipe.

“He hasn't had great results this season, even if he was getting stronger at the beginning of the Giro, with the victory in the team time-trial.”

Wiggins’ withdrawal from the defence of his title was confirmed yesterday by his Sky team, which said that he didn’t have the necessary form to compete in the race.

Having won the Tour de France last year, Wiggins based the entire first part of the current season on the Giro d’Italia, which was his fixed main goal for 2013. However, he was clearly way off his peak condition as he was continuously being dropped on both the descents and the climbs, crashing early in the race and then abandoning, quoting a chest infection.

Prudhomme knows that the loss of the defending champion will have a negative effect on the race, not least because Wiggins completely dominated the event last year and also because the internal problems on the Sky team regarding the leadership of the team. However, he points out that it has occurred many times in the past and the race has continued with the same lustre.

“It is not that rare [for a defending champion to miss out on his defence of his Tour win], especially during the 1980s. It was thanks to the withdrawal of Bernard Hinault in 1983 that we got to see Laurent Fignon's victory,” he pointed out.

“For the observers, there remained a question mark in the Sky team even if Dave Brailsford had established leadership (for Chris Froome.) Now there will be a well-structured Sky team that will fight, with Chris Froome, against the other favourites of the Tour - Alberto Contador, Cadel Evans, Tejay Van Garderen, Joaquím Rodriguez and, why not, the Colombian climber Nairo Quintana.”

It’s not difficult to miss Prudhomme’s point: no single rider is more important than the race itself. Prudhomme, however, does believe that Wiggins shall return to the Tour at the height of his powers. “Wiggins will without doubt be even more motivated at the start of the Tour in 2014, in Yorkshire.”