Dave Brailsford CBE was credited as one of the principal architects of Britain's track cyclists' incredible transformation from also-rans to world-beaters. When his team won eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, seven of them in the velodrome, Brailsford was widely acclaimed for his vision, ambition and leadership skills.
As team principal for Team Sky he will be aiming to replicate the success he has enjoyed as performance director at British Cycling. And he admits his ambition is the same - to be the best in the world. The approach, however, is likely to be subtly different.
"Trying to run the track and road teams in the same way would be a mistake," explains Brailsford. "Our mentality will be the same as with the track, though. It's all or nothing. We've thought through it very carefully; it's a massive challenge, but a very exciting one."
It was the success of the track team that sowed the seeds for Britain's first ProTour road team. "Our under-23 academy was starting to produce a critical mass of good riders," says Brailsford. "Seeing those guys start to perform on the world stage helped to crystallise our thinking. Setting up a professional team was the logical next step, and, from the moment Shane Sutton and I first discussed the idea, I was convinced it was do-able."
From the moment that Brailsford first announced the team he confirmed that the bold ambition would be to win the Tour de France within five years with a British rider. He described that as "a hell of a project, but if I thought it was impossible I wouldn't be progressing with it. We have the talent coming through - I've never doubted that."
Brailsford, who grew up in Wales, and whose father was a pioneering Alpine mountain guide, once harboured his own ambitions of becoming a Tour de France cyclist. After four years in France pursuing that dream he realised he wouldn't achieve it, and returned to Britain to pursue a career in business.
But it is as a leader in sport that he has achieved so much - and his greatest success, in the biggest cycle race in the world, could still be to come.
