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Control freak: Dave Brailsford. Tim Ireland/PA Wire/Press Association Images
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Cycling: Team GB cycling boss Brailsford eyes Rio 2016

The cycling chief reckons he can balance his roles with the Olympic outfit and the pros at Team Sky.

DAVE BRAILSFORD, THE man behind the British cycling’s team run of gold medal success at the Beijing and London Olympics, has vowed to continue in his post until the 2016 Games in Rio.

As well as being British Cycling’s performance director, the 48-year-old Brailsford is also the principal of Team Sky, in which capacity he oversaw Bradley Wiggins becoming the first British winner of the Tour de France earlier this year.

But Brailsford, who helped guide the British cycling team to eight golds in London, insisted he still had Olympic ambitions.

“I’m not sure that I was ever going to let go and walk away (completely),” said Brailsford, following the Track World Cup in Glasgow. ”In my mind I like to think that there was a safety valve where you can just go ‘Okay, let’s look at where we are going’.

“We might structure it slightly differently, we might think about longer-term succession planning. I’d like to think we’re building something which is sustainable; coming up to Rio if I just disappeared off sideways nobody would really notice and it would just carry on.”

Brailsford added enthusiasm was key to his role, saying: “If I wake up and I’m not motivated, I’m not excited by it, I will step aside, because somebody else should be doing it.”

- © AFP, 2012

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