When Sir Bradley Wiggins withdrew from this year's Tour de France it seemed like Team Sky had happened upon the perfect solution to their brewing leadership battle.

Chris Froome was told last year he would be the No 1 rider this time around and Wiggins backed the idea, only to declare prior to the Giro d'Italia that he wanted the chance to defend his Tour title.

All that changed on the wet roads of Italy when Wiggins succumbed to a chest infection, and then revealed a knee injury – the combination of the two enough to rule him out of the Tour as he could not train properly.

The issue looked done and dusted, but Froome, who has rarely shied away from this battle for supremacy within the team, has made sure his pursuit of glory this summer will remain as much about the man who is not there as those he is trying to beat.

His claim that he wants victory in this year's Tour to serve as a springboard for several years of dominance means this is no longer a squabble over this summer, but a fight for the long-term future of the team.

Lose, and Froome may have ceded control of the team back to Wiggins. But win, and the 28-year-old will have made a strong case that he is the man to take Team Sky forward, a younger, fitter version of the 33-year-old Wiggins who faces a long road back to form following this season's disappointments.

It seems remarkable that, 12 months on from becoming the first Briton to win the Tour, Wiggins is facing what Great Britain coach and long-time mentor Shane Sutton has described as a "crisis".

His age does not rule him out of contending again – as the 36-year-old Cadel Evans demonstrated with a podium finish at the Giro – but the threat from his former lieutenant is even more significant than the role of Father Time.

The signs were perhaps there last summer when Froome initially attacked on the mountainous stage 11 to La Toussaire, only to be told to wait for Wiggins.

If Froome had not suffered an early puncture in the race – on a pothole which Wiggins also hit without damage – things might have worked out very differently.

This year, everything seems to be falling into place for Kenya-born Froome. In the same way Wiggins dominated the early part of the 2012 season, Froome has swept almost all before him so far this year.

He has won four stage races with victories in the Tour of Oman, the Criterium International, the Tour of Romandie and the Criterium du Dauphine.

The only man who has beaten him was Giro d'Italia winner Vincenzo Nibali, who won the Tirreno- Adriatico ahead of Froome, but the Italian has said he will not race in the Tour to focus on the world championships.

Instead, Froome's primary competition is expected to come from Alberto Contador, the 2007 and 2009 winner who is returning to the race after a doping ban.

His 10th-place finish in the Dauphine hardly caught the imagination, but the Spaniard claimed he was only at 75% of capacity in the event and is confident he will have found his form come the Tour, which begins on Saturday.

As well as Contador, Froome himself also identified as rivals the veteran Evans, 2009 Vuelta a Espana winner Alejandro Valverde, Joaquim Rodriguez, and the emerging youngsters Tejay Van Garderen and Nairo Quintana.

But none of them have shown anything like the form of Froome. At this point last year, Wiggins was accused of peaking too early, only to blow away any such presumption in the Tour. Now his team-mate has the chance to do the same.

It seems a wonderful luxury for Team Sky to have. In the space of a few short years, the conversation has gone from whether Britain could ever produce a Tour winner to a battle between two British team-mates for the right to contest the crown.

Team boss Sir Dave Brailsford is a man ruled by logic, not emotion, and he will always back his strongest horse. Just who that will be going forward could become clear in the new few weeks.

It is extremely rare for a defending champion not to line up for a Tour de France so Wiggins was always going to be conspicuous by his absence.

But this time the shadow he casts, and how Froome handles it, could have implications for years to come.