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Thomas fears Cav snub to Sky

Mark Cavendish has not ruled out a stay with HTC-Highroad next year © Getty Images

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Geraint Thomas has urged Mark Cavendish, who won the green jersey at this year's Tour de France, to join him at Team Sky next year.

Cavendish, whose current contract with HTC-Highroad expires at the end of the year, is refusing to reveal the identity of the team he will ride for in 2012.

Team Sky looked to be a shoo-in a few months ago, but recent indications have suggested Cavendish is willing to stay with HTC.

And Thomas has told his fellow Brit to forget about any U-turn he has planned. "It's a tricky decision for him, but I hope he comes here," Thomas told BBC Sport Wales. "We've got a good relationship, we're good mates and he's got a lot of mates in Sky and he can see it's a good team.

"But there's a lot of other good teams out there as well. He's the fastest man in the world and to be leading him out would be great. As they say success breeds success and if we were leading him out and he's winning stages in the biggest races then it will carry the whole team forward."

Meanwhile, Thomas has disagreed with team-mate Bradley Wiggins by insisting that the Olympics, not the Tour de France, should be a rider's priority. "The Olympics is the main thing for me," he said. "Sky originally was all set up because of the Olympics and winning there.

"Along with the coaches' advice and what they think best, we'll go with that. The Tour de France finishes 10 days before the Olympic team pursuit race. It's a home Olympics, we're in with a great shout of winning the gold medal so I don't want to jeopardise that in any way.

"If the Tour's going to take a bit of an edge off me going into the Olympics then I would have to miss it. But it could help. It's one of those things we need to sit down with the coaches and really discuss properly October-time once the season's done and decide what the plan of attack's going to be."

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