CHARTRES - Only a few years ago, the chances of a Briton winning the Tour de France looked as remote as seeing a French team win the cricket World Cup. Now after 99 editions of the race without a Briton in the top three, Bradley Wiggins is poised to win it with compatriot Chris Froome on course for second while world champion Mark Cavendish has logged his 22nd career stage victory in the race and is eyeing a fourth successive win on the Champs Elysees. The trio ride for the predominantly British Team Sky which have quickly established themselves as the dominant force in cycling. There have always been British riders but although history notes that a James Moore won the first road cycling race in 1868 in France, cycling was one of those rare sports Britain did not invent and spread around the world. Part of the reason for the country's long wait for a Tour champion lies in the history of the sport -- while road races in bunches developed early in continental Europe, Britain tended to favour time trials and record attempts by a lone rider from one town to another. As a result, the country produced brilliant time trial specialists like Chris Boardman, David Millar and even Wiggins rather than grand Tour riders. There were exceptions, naturally, like sprint ace Barry Hoban, who collected eight Tour stages between 1967 and 1975, or Scottish climber Robert Millar, the King of the Mountains in 1984 which was the year he finished fourth overall. That was the best final standing by a Briton in the Tour, matched by Wiggins in 2009, until this year. There was also Beryl Burton, who from the 1950s won over 90 domestic championships, seven world titles, and whose 12-hour time trial record exceeded the men's for two years. Another explanation for such a late achievement might be the shock of Tom Simpson's death on the Ventoux in 1967, a trauma for the sport which has marked British cycling. Wiggins has repeatedly cited Simpson as an inspiration while David Millar, when he won stage 12 on this Tour could not help noting that the victory was 45 years to the day after Simpson's death. It took vision and a strong will to make it all change. David Brailsford, the son of a mountain guide with a passion for French summits, started out as a professional rider in France in the 1980's but it quickly became clear he would not break through. "I returned to Britain to study sports science and sports psychology at university," the Team Sky principal told Reuters. "I knew I would never be a high-level rider but I liked the idea of becoming a coach. After my first degree I studied for an MBA (Master of Business Administration) in Sheffield." Brailsford turned personal failure into a sensational collective success, climbing the ladder of British cycling to become performance director and lead the national team from the Athens Olympics in 2004 The success was exceptional, with 14 medals in Beijing four years later but Brailsford always had it at the back of his mind to make it on the road. When he announced the creation in 2009 of a professional road squad aiming at winning the Tour within five years, sceptics grinned.
