John_D wrote:Froome has the potential to win Grand Tours in the very near future, maybe even this year's Vuelta. Trouble is, if he's going to win the big one he'll probably have to leave Sky to do it.
I don't think he has to leave Team Sky - I'll explain.
This years Tour is set up for a strong time triallist. Yes there are climbs but there are not too many strong climbers around to capitalise on them. Evans is not a mountain goat. Nibali is somewhere between a mountain goat and a classics man. Samuel Sanchez has crashed out. Cobo is....nowhere to be seen.
So this year is the perfect storm for Wiggins to capitalise and win the Tdf.
Next year - I reckon that ASO will want a different Tour. One which sets up a battle between a returning Contador and Andy Schleck. Would Wiggins be a player in this kind of battle? Well he'd certainly be a top 5 player based on what I've seen so far.
However a strong Contador would take big chunks of time out of Brad in the serious mountains. Too much for him to take back in a TT.
Froome on the other hand would be a serious contender.
As for this years Vuelta. That is going to be a battle between the mountain guys with Contador back and Andy Schleck wanting to recover something from 2012 - whether Froome would have enough in the tank remains to be seen although he hasn't raced a lot of miles this year.
