Brailsford insists Team Sky isn't all about Wiggins

WITH a reported start-up budget of £30 million, it's little surprise that no expense was spared as cycling's newest team rode into town this morning.

STAR MAN: Bradley Wiggins's move from Garmin to Team Sky was one of the close season's most protracted transfer sagas (Getty Images)

Star signing Bradley Wiggins - the three-time Olympic champion who finished fourth in this year's Tour de France - is the stellar-name in the 26-strong rider roster, which includes 12 nationalities.

British team-mate and rising star Ben Swift, who is the subject of a contractual wrangle with previous employers Katusha, was today confirmed in the squad.

Team principal Dave Brailsford insists he will bring the same meticulous attention to detail, which has made Great Britain's track cycling programme the envy of the world, to his expanded role.

And he has made no secret of his ultimate ambition - a British rider winning a Grand Tour in the next five years.

However, after a transfer saga as protracted as anything seen in the Premier League, Brailsford insisted he didn't want Wiggins to be the only story.

"You can't compete at this level without a great team behind you and Bradley will be the first to admit that," he said.

"He's a goalscorer but he needs everyone else behind him and that is what this team is about.

"The team is what we hoped to get and they are starting to gel already, so we can't wait to get racing.

"The key thing for us is to make sure everything is centred on the riders.

"We want to treat them with dignity and respect, so then they can be the best then can be.

"People need to be motivated to get the best out of them.  We want them to achieve excellence and we are ambitious.

"However, team spirit is critical to us. The personality of the riders played a big part in our recruitment."

Team Sky's no-expense spared recruitment tactics, and glitzy launch, have already raised eyebrows among some of the more experienced teams in the peleton.

Brailsford claims all is fair in love and cycling and played a cautious flat bat to suggestions Mark Cavendish, who won six stages of last year's Tour, including the blue-riband sprint on the Champs Elysees, could be a future arrival.

Instead he preferred to talk up the hopes of Norway's Edvald Boasson Hagen, who won this year's Tour of Britain with a series of storming sprint victories, and is viewed by many as a future rival to the talented Manxman, currently employed by American team Colombia-HTC.

"We've full respect for all the teams out there and it will be an honour to finally race against them in Australia," added Brailsford.

"Mark would be a good acquisition for anyone. But he's in the right team at the moment, he's racing well and he is under contract.

"The current situation with Mark is he is happy where he is but he will always come out and race for the Great Britain international team. We'll just see how it develops."