Tour of Britain: Ben Swift says Team Sky leadership is not yet decided
Saturday 5 September 2015 18:39, UK
Ben Swift says Team Sky will not decide who their leader is at the Aviva Tour of Britain until after the race has started.
The 27-year-old Yorkshireman will be joined in the British squad's six-man line-up by Peter Kennaugh, Ian Stannard, Andrew Fenn, Elia Viviani and Wout Poels.
Swift appears on paper to be the rider best suited to the rolling route of the eight-day race, which begins on Sunday, but he insists he could just as easily play a supporting role to a team-mate.
He told skysports.com: "When you have six-rider teams, it tends to get decided out on the race. You can go in with a plan, but it's such an unpredictable race that you have to take it as it comes.
"We have got myself and Elia for the sprints, and then Wout and Pete for the climbs, so we have plenty of options.
"The route is really good terrain for a rider like myself and I really like it. I have grown up on roads like this and I have performed well on this sort of terrain in the past, but it all depends on how the race is ridden."
The Tour of Britain starts with a 177.7km first stage from Beaumaris to Wrexham and ends on Sunday, September 13, with a flat eighth stage in central London.
The race has developed a reputation for being an ideal warm-up for the UCI Road World Championships, after Poland's Michal Kwiatkowski and Sir Bradley Wiggins finished second and third overall last year and then won the world road-race and time-trial titles respectively a fortnight later.
Swift is keen to be part of Great Britain's team for this year's world championships, in Richmond in the United States from September 19-27, and hopes the Tour of Britain can help fine-tune his form.
He added: "It is definitely now one of the best warm-up races for the worlds. With the worlds being in America this year, an ideal programme would have been USA Pro Challenge, Tour of Alberta and the GPs in Quebec and Montreal, but what you get with the Tour of Britain is eight days of really intense racing over small climbs, which is generally the same sort of terrain you get at the worlds, so it's ideal.
"It's also not an overload, like the Vuelta a Espana, so you don't get bogged down with three weeks of racing. So it's a perfect pre-worlds hit-out and a lot of people are realising that now."
Swift is looking to salvage his 2015 season after missing a three-month chunk of the year due to a shoulder injury sustained in a crash at May's Tour de Yorkshire.
He was forced to undergo an operation to repair damage to the joint – his third surgery on the same shoulder – and admits he is still recovering his best form.
He said: "I'm a bit in limbo. I'm race fit, but having suffered that injury when I did, at the end of the spring, it leaves a big hole right in the middle of your season and it's hard to make up for those lost racing kilometres.
"You can be super-fit and have worked really hard, but you're still playing catch-up."
