More details emerge on Team Wiggins

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Eight riders have reportedly signed on for Team Wiggins, the track-centric UCI Continental development squad to be captained by Sir Bradley Wiggins following his spring road campaign with Team Sky. The team is being built around developing a squad for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio, where Wiggins is expected to lead the British pursuit team in their quest for gold.

According to Cycling Weekly, Steven Burke is the only member of the 2012 Olympic gold medal winning pursuit team to join Team Wiggins, with Commonwealth Games silver medalist Andrew Tennant as the two most experienced riders in the team. Welshman Owain Doull and Mark Christian, who won the Madison in the London World Cup this month, are also in the team.

The team appears to be incorporating talent from other disciplines as well, with young mountain bikers Iain Paton and Michael Thompson named to the squad. Road riders Jon Dibben, who beat Doull to win the time trial stage in the Triptyque des Monts et Châteaux this year, and Daniel Patten, who raced in 2013 with Team Smartstop, round out the team.

Wiggins, who will end his road career with Team Sky after the Spring Classics and, possibly, the Giro d'Italia, will be able to officially switch to the team as a rider during the UCI transfer window in June.

The 2012 Tour de France champion announced last year he would wind down his road career in favour of a run at the Rio Olympic Games. News of the development squad came in September, before Wiggins claimed the World Championship title in the time trial in Ponferrada.

In October, Wiggins was said to be close to making an announcement about Team Wiggins, but nothing official has come out as of yet.

Cycling Weekly links Wiggins' manager Robert Dodds, rider agent Andrew McQuaid and director Simon Cope to the team as part of its management structure, with sponsors Pinarello, Rapha and Sky.