Tour de France: Team Sky back in yellow but other challenges await

After a year’s interlude and 3,360km of perfectly executed racing over the past three weeks, Team Sky returned to the top step of the podium at the Tour de France on Sunday.

The British squad have now won cycling’s showpiece race in three of the past four years and while "dynasty"  is a dangerous term to use given its potential misinterpretations in a sport where suspicion of foul play is so rife, there can be no denying that they appear to have the Tour’s number.

From Sir Bradley Wiggins’ breakthrough win in 2012 to Chris Froome’s victories in 2013 and this year, Team Sky have seemingly mastered the nuances of this most vigorous of sporting challenges.

They have proven to be experts at peaking perfectly, their reconnaissance of routes is exemplary and they have even maintained total focus in the face of accusations of doping and physical abuse from spectators.

They might even have been celebrating four wins in a row this weekend had Froome not crashed out of the 2014 edition just five stages in.

As it is, three yellow jerseys still represents a golden era for British road cycling and, in Froome, they have a rider who could dominate the Tour for another two or three years.

The challenge now for Team Sky is to extend their monopoly of the Tour to the rest of cycling, a task team principal Sir Dave Brailsford identified over the winter when outlining his vision to become "indisputably" the best cycling team in the world by 2020.

To achieve that, they must replicate their success at the Tour in two areas in particular.

The first is cycling’s other two grand tours, the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana, which remain unconquered by Team Sky and become an increasingly glaring void in the team’s list of honours with every passing season.

They have twice finished on the podium at the Vuelta, in 2011 and 2014, and Froome could well target this year’s edition, depending on how he feels after the Tour.

But at the Giro they haven’t even come close to victory. Rigoberto Uran finished second for the team in 2013, a year when intended team leader Sir Bradley Wiggins abandoned through injury and illness, yet in truth the Colombian never really threatened to overhaul eventual winner Vincenzo Nibali.

Richie Porte also left this year’s Giro early as another edition slipped by, and with the Australian set to leave the squad at the end of the season, it remains to be seen who will lead at the 2016 race.

Leopold Konig, who finished sixth this year, is an obvious candidate but would not be regarded as a favourite, while speculation is mounting that Spain’s Mikel Landa, who won two stages on the way to finishing third overall, is on his way to Team Sky this winter and would be a more credible Giro contender.

The other area Team Sky are yet to flourish in is the spring classics.

There can be no doubting they have some of the best classics riders in the sport, an attribute proven when Geraint Thomas and Ian Stannard both delivered outstanding victories in two of the more minor classics earlier this year, E3 Harelbeke and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad respectively.

But Team Sky remain a long way off winning one of the so-called Monuments – Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Il Lombardia – the five most prestigious one-day classics.

Ben Swift finished third at Milan-San Remo in 2014, Uran was third at Il Lombardia in 2012 and Juan Antonio Flecha was third at Paris-Roubaix in 2010, but otherwise, podiums have proven difficult to come by in the Monuments, let alone victories.

Again, the transfer rumour mill would have us believe that Michal Kwiatkowski, the reigning world road race champion, is on his way to Team Sky this winter and he would bolster their chances in Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

But in the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, it’s difficult to see how they can improve on Thomas and Stannard – not to mention the ever-developing Luke Rowe – so it’s more a case of sticking to the same plan and hoping stars align on a given day.

While Swift remains the best option in Milan-San Remo, Team Sky do not yet have the sort of punchy climbers to crack Il Lombardia, although that race is probably lowest on their list of classics targets.

But then these are all concerns for another day. Now is the time for celebration.

When Team Sky entered professional cycling in 2010, the founding aim was to win the Tour within five years. They have now won it three times in six years and, given their dominance of the race, they will once again be the team to beat in 2016.