TEAM Sky will go into tomorrow's British National Road Race Championships in Glasgow as marked men.
Many riders from rival teams have been vocal about a desire to end Sky's stranglehold on the event during which Geraint Thomas, Sir Bradley Wiggins and Ian Stannard have claimed successive victories in the past three years.
Their six-strong roster includes the defending champion Stannard alongside Jonathan Tiernan-Locke, Peter Kennaugh, Josh Edmondson, Luke Rowe and Ben Swift.
One scenario not unlikely to unfold would be for riders such as David Millar (Garmin-Sharp), Mark Caven-dish and Andy Fenn (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) to form an alliance with the likes of Alex Dowsett (Movistar), Steve Cummings and Adam Blythe (BMC) to launch a counterattack.
Rapha Condor JLT and Team Raleigh, meanwhile, will have an eye on a podium finish with the Scottish riders James McCallum and Evan Oli-phant among their respective squads.
Rod Ellingworth, the Team Sky performance manager who has nurtured much of Britain's young cycling talent in recent years, including Cavendish, is all too aware of the scrutiny his riders will be under.
"I wouldn't want to be the lads in a way because it's hard for them to win something like this: every one of them is going to be marked out there," he said. "I think it will be a good race. There's a lot of good guys in there, too, like Alex [Dowsett] and Cav."
Stannard made the decision not to ride in Thursday's time trial through East Ayrshire and is scheduled to arrive in Glasgow later today. "It was Ian's call," said Ellingworth. "Coming out of the Criterium du Dauphine, he then ended up doing the training camp [in Chatel, France], so things knocked on a bit. It wasn't so much a precautionary measure as simply time away from home. It's just to balance everything, really. He would literally have only had a couple of days and then been up here racing then back down and off to the Tour.
"It's Ian's first Tour and I think with all the guys doing their first one you have to be careful how they come into it because they do get nervous and I don't think they need extra fatigue from lots of racing."
Stannard, who will ride in support of Chris Froome in the Tour de France, as will Kennaugh, showed his pedigree in Milan-San Remo earlier this year when he finished sixth. Tiernan-Locke, a classics specialist and winner of the 2012 Tour of Britain, is another contender.
Even so, Ellingworth admitted it is far from a forgone conclusion. "The last few years in British nationals there's been big climbs and I think that's what makes this race quite difficult for them," he said. "There is a lot of people who could win this race.
"They won't ride for any one par-ticular guy," he added. "I think at road nationals, it's not as simple as that and they all need to have their own opportunity. On the day, the lads will be honest and the ones that aren't feeling good, who are coming into this tired or not quite on form, will work for the others. We perhaps have two who will do that but certainly have four who are well up for it and could win the race."
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