Team Wiggins Le Col Explained

Team Wiggins Le Col
Code:	WGN
Registered:	United Kingdom
Website:	http://www.teamwiggins.co/
Generalmanager:	Robert Dodds Andrew McQuaid Bradley Wiggins
Teammanager:	Simon Cope
Discipline:	Road & track
Bicycles:	Pinarello
Clothing:	Le Col
Groupset:	SRAM
Status:	UCI Continental
Season:	2014–2018 2019
Oldname:	WIGGINS Team Wiggins Le Col
Kitimage:	WIGGINS JERSEY 2018.jpg

Team Wiggins Le Col, also known as Team Wiggins in media, was a professional developmental cycling team based in the United Kingdom, which began competing in elite road bicycle racing and track cycling in 2015. The team folded at the end of the 2019 season after completing the Tour of Britain.^[1]

Team history

The team was founded by Bradley Wiggins, after much speculation in the latter part of the 2014 road season, in order to better facilitate his return to the track as part of his preparations for the 2016 Olympic Games.^[2] ^[3]

The team has a reported budget of £460,000 which is comparable to JLT–Condor and Madison-Genesis. According to Cycling Weekly the team's management comprises Robert Dodds (president of XIX Entertainment, and Wiggins's manager), Andrew McQuaid (rider agent and director of Trinity Sports Management) and Wiggins himself. The team appointed former DS Simon Cope as its first directeur sportif .^[4]

For the team's inaugural season the team began with eight full-time riders, with Wiggins joining on 1 May 2015. Those eight were Steven Burke, Mark Christian, Jonathan Dibben, Owain Doull, Daniel Patten, Iain Paton, Andy Tennant and Michael Thompson.^[5] These eight riders are supplemented by riders from the British Academy on a race to race basis. On 5 January 2015 the team was officially awarded its UCI Continental licence.^[6]

In March 2015, Bradley Wiggins confirmed that he would make his debut with the team at the inaugural Tour de Yorkshire at the start of May.^[7] In 2016, he entered the Tour De Yorkshire with his team and dropped out in the first stage.^[8] WIGGINS was not invited to the 2017 Tour de Yorkshire.^[9] In 2018 following the collapse of Team Aqua Blue Sport, Team Wiggins participated at short notice in the 2018 Tour of Britain.^[10] Tom Pidcock was the team's highest placed rider in the race at 17th in the General Classification.

In November 2018 the team filed paperwork with Companies House which indicated that XIX Entertainment no longer held a 40 per cent stake in the team, and that this share had been transferred to Wiggins' firm, Wiggins Right Limited.^[11]

In August 2019, Wiggins announced that the team would closing down at the end of the year.^[12]

Sponsorship

Sky, along with British Cycling, will sponsor and support the team.^[13] The team's kit was initially produced by Rapha.^[14] but as of 2018 the team switched to use Le Col as their clothing supplier. In December 2018 Wiggins announced that Le Col would step up to becoming the team's co-title sponsor for 2019, with the team being known as Team Wiggins Le Col.^[15] The team use Pinarello bikes equipped with Zipp, Fizik, Elite and SRAM components.^[16]