Sutton urges Wiggins to stay at Team Sky
Sir Bradley Wiggins' mentor Shane Sutton has urged him to remain at Team Sky despite his Tour de France snub.
Wiggins' expected omission from Team Sky's nine-man group for the Tour was confirmed on Friday, coming barely 12 hours after he won his third national time trial title with a blistering performance at Celtic Manor in Newport.
Instead of competing against the world's best in the most famous cycle race of all, 2012 Tour winner Wiggins will be back on the track preparing for a Commonwealth Games medal challenge alongside his England team-mates.
Wiggins' contract with Sky expires at the end of the season and speculation has begun about whether he could look elsewhere to revive his Tour ambitions, but British Cycling coach Sutton believes Wiggins' track future would be best served by a new deal with Sir Dave Brailsford's team.
"I think it would be a big mistake on Brad's part. We would love Brad to stay on board," he told Sky Sports.
"Sky has been such a big supporter on our road to (the Olympics in) London, our road to Rio now. I'm quite sure that his representatives, Sir Dave and Sky could sit down and they could map out a great package that gives Brad the flexibility to drop into the Classics, then come back out into the track programme.
"I think when Sky's offering you a hand like that you would be mad to bite it off, to be honest with you, and I'm pretty sure that he will stay with Sky."
Wiggins' recent form - he won the Tour of California and finished in the top 10 in Paris-Roubaix earlier this season - would surely earn him a Tour ride with any other team, but his history of disputes with defending champion Chris Froome has been a constant headache for Brailsford, and appears to have cost Wiggins his place.
A number of other teams, most notably the Orica GreenEdge squad - who sporting director Matt White worked with Wiggins at Garmin Slipstream - have been linked with his signature, but Sutton believes Wiggins' future focus on the track makes Sky the only choice.
"Brad doesn't have to do any more," he added. "He's a legend. He wanted to leave the sport a legend and if he walked away tomorrow he leaves a legend.
"He has won the Tour de France, numerous Olympics medals, world titles. The guy is a legend in his own right, so for me, why would he go somewhere else and dent his chances of winning that next gold that he really wants in Rio? I think it would be a bad move for Brad to leave Sky."
Wiggins had already anticipated he would miss out and backed Froome to win in his absence.
"It is what it is," he said. "I think the team they are sending is an incredible team.
"You've got a defending champion who is going to be the favourite to win it, you have got the likes of Geraint (Thomas), who could win on Sunday and take the British road title into the Tour, so the team that is going you couldn't fault it really.
"I would have liked to have been there but at the same time, the squad is so strong now.
"It came down that there was a cut-off point, and I probably hadn't had the preparation with having gone back on the track, really.
"It's disappointing on a personal level, but I think from a team point of view they have probably put the strongest squad up as it stands today. It was always looking that I probably wasn't going to ride the Tour."
Froome suffered a heavy fall during the recent Criterium du Dauphine in France, but Wiggins does not expect that to prevent him becoming the Tour's first back-to-back winner since Spaniard Miguel Indurain almost 20 years ago.
"We saw the best of Chris at the start of the Dauphine, then it looked like he was hampered by the crash," said Wiggins.
"Chris, at the start of the Dauphine, in that form, it looks like no-one can touch him really."