Dream to reality

Team Sky has been almost four years in the making, from the original idea to the unveiling, in January 2010, of the 26 riders and 44 staff who will comprise Britain's biggest and most ambitious ever professional road cycling team.

Team Sky started with a conversation between Dave Brailsford, British Cycling's performance director, and Shane Sutton, the head coach, in Melbourne in March 2006. Brailsford and Sutton discussed the idea of setting up a professional road team as they watched the track cyclists in action during the Commonwealth Games.

"A road team would have the same principles as the track team," said Sutton, "and the same level of ambition - to be the best in the world."

When it came to professional road cycling, Sutton knew what he was talking about. He was a member of the last British team to tackle the Tour de France - ANC-Halfords in 1987.

That had ended in disaster, when the team folded soon after the Tour - Sutton himself abandoned the race after a week. He insisted that if they were to set up a professional road team, it had to be done properly, with "a good sponsor." There needed to be "a secure environment", Sutton maintained, for the riders and staff to perform to the best of their ability.

For the next year, Brailsford and Sutton discussed the road team project from time to time, though their main focus remained on the track team as they built towards the Olympics.

And then in January 2007, at the UCI track World Cup in Los Angeles, they decided, according to Sutton, "to make it a reality."

Catalyst

It was the progress of the British Cycling Academy, for under-23 riders, that acted as a catalyst. Products of the academy - including Mark Cavendish, Geraint Thomas, Ian Stannard and Ben Swift - were turning professional, or showing great potential, and, in the process, leaving the British Cycling 'family'.

A professional road team was the logical next challenge for Brailsford and Sutton and the coaching staff at British Cycling. But it was also a way of keeping the country's top road talent 'in the family', and a way of creating for young riders a pathway to the very pinnacle of the sport - the Tour de France.

It was at that year's Tour de France, in July 2007, that Brailsford went public with his plans for a team. Coincidentally, it was the day that Bradley Wiggins staged a 190km solo break, which was foiled just before the finish of stage six in Bourg-en-Bresse. And it followed the Tour's triumphant Grand Départ in London, when millions of people lined the streets of the capital, and the road to Canterbury, demonstrating an enthusiasm and passion for cycle racing equal to that found anywhere on the continent. The Tour's director, Christian Prudhomme, described the race's two days in Britain as "magical" and promised that the Tour would return.

In Bourg-en-Bresse Brailsford told journalists of his plans to one day have a team at the Tour. "We've had a feeling that the riders were coming through but having the feeling and having it confirmed are two different things," said Brailsford. "You see someone like Geraint [Thomas] charging down the prologue course and being best rider in his team at 21 and you realise it's on."

The ambition, he added, would be to be best in the world. "We are not going to have a ProTour team and not want to win the Tour de France. That's not our mentality."

London calling

Brailsford said the London start of the Tour had been important in "crystallizing our thinking... The London Grand Départ was such a success, it showed there could be an appetite for the sport in Britain."

When the British track team dominated the world championships in Manchester in March 2008, winning nine gold medals, it acted to accelerate Brailsford's plans for the new pro team. While originally he had said 2013 would see the team enter the sport, he recognised that the Beijing Olympics, later that summer, presented an opportunity. If his team could repeat their world championship success, then cycling's profile could rocket.

Prior to the Olympics, on 24 July 2008, Sky were announced as British Cycling's principal partner for five years, with the goal to inspire a million more people to ride bikes by 2013. "Sport is at the heart of what we do at Sky," said Jeremy Darroch, the company's chief executive. "We want to encourage participation in sport and help to develop future talent. British Cycling has already achieved outstanding success and grown a host of sporting heroes. We want to help Britain's elite to achieve even more success, develop the next generation of talent and inspire millions of people to get on their bikes."

In Beijing, Britain's cyclists didn't repeat their world championship success - they bettered it. In August 2008 they won seven out of ten gold medals in the track, and a historic first gold medal on the road, thanks to Nicole Cooke in the women's road race.

Sky's the limit

That led to Sky agreeing to sponsor the professional road team, a development announced in London on 26 February 2009. "We're setting out to create an epic story - an epic British success story," said Brailsford. "Now it's down to business: to find out what it's going to take to win the Tour de France with a clean British rider." The new squad would, Brailsford confirmed for the first time, be called 'Team Sky'.

Post-Beijing Brailsford and his team also set up a database as an aid to recruitment. "It monitors the results of hundreds of riders," explained Brailsford. "But it does more than that; we want guys who we feel can fit into the way we work, who are 'on the up,' and have potential; who are English-speaking if possible; and who we believe, most crucially, to be clean."

On 9 September 2009 the first six Team Sky riders were announced: Steve Cummings, Russell Downing, Chris Froome, Peter Kennaugh, Ian Stannard and Geraint Thomas. All are British, with Cummings, Kennaugh, Stannard and Olympic team pursuit gold medallist Thomas all products of the British Cycling Academy.

On 10 September, Team Sky named ten more signings: Edvald Boasson Hagen, Thomas Löfkvist, Greg Henderson, Morris Possoni, Simon Gerrans, Kurt-Asle Arvesen, Juan Antonio Flecha, Kjell Carlstrom, John-Lee Augustyn, Lars Petter Nordhaug. Boasson Hagen's capture is hailed as especially significant, with the Norwegian hailed as one of the sport's brightest young talents.

On 15 September Team Sky was awarded a four-year ProTour licence by the UCI, gaining the team automatic entry to some of the world's top races.

On 9 October renowned Italian manufacturer Pinarello was announced as bike supplier. More riders were also confirmed. On 29 October Michael Barry, Christopher Sutton and Serge Pauwels were all named as the latest Team Sky riders, with Sylvain Calzati, Nicolas Portal and Mathew Hayman following on 16 November.

And on 19 November two Italians, Dario Cioni and Davide Viganò, brought the roster up to 24. On 20 November British cycling legend Sean Yates was confirmed as a Sports Director - joining Scott Sunderland, Steven de Jongh and Marcus Ljunqvist.

On 10 December, the signing of Bradley Wiggins, the triple Olympic gold medallist, who equalled the best ever British placing of fourth overall at the 2009 Tour de France, was confirmed while Ben Swift completed the roster ahead of the team's launch date on 4 January 2010.