Inside Team Sky

by Walsh, David

  Wiggins can almost taste the salt of his rival’s ambition and determination. He can see it in the way the season started in Oman with Froome devouring the desert sands. And he knows that this year’s Tour will be more mountain than time trial.

  ‘He is a better climber than me. Chris is one of the best climbers in the world, we talk about weight and numbers, he’s got that frame of that time-triallist, powerful rider and he’s five kilos lighter than me, he’s a freak in terms of his frame. That power, and yet he’s got this incredibly light climber’s weight. I envy him in some respects, I wish I could be five kilos lighter and have the same power. ‘

  I had gone to Mallorca to see Wiggins, to shoot the breeze at a time when he had only his bike and family for company. We spoke at a restaurant where one of his Tour de France jerseys hangs on the wall and the staff invite his two young kids to come in behind the bar and help with the washing and drying. When Cath, their mum, tells the children it’s time to give the staff a little space, they come back to the table immediately.

  To better understand Wiggins, the contradictions must be embraced. Sometimes he likes to analyse his performance in training and talk numbers with Tim Kerrison. Other times he likes to roll along without a thought about power output and aerodynamic drag. As much as he enjoys Kerrison’s intellect, he has learned even more from another Aussie, the no-frills, straight-talking and emotional ex-pro Shane Sutton.

  Wiggins’s intelligence is as obvious as his fragility. He could rationalise Froome’s flexing of muscle on those two mountain stages in the 2012 Tour but not get shot of the feeling he had been humiliated.

  For his part, Froome is less animated but more open about 2012 when we meet in Nice two weeks before the start of the Tour. He says that he found last year’s Tour to be ‘quite stressful’, and that he would stop short of calling Team Sky a ‘happy team environment’.

  ‘There were a lot of questions from the outside about the leadership and the way that Bradley is. He’s not very approachable, not very open and communicative about how he is feeling or about the situation we had on the road. It certainly did add to the feeling that, “Wow, we’re first and second in this bike race.”’

  Once again he explains the anatomy of his so-called treachery. From the very first stage when he lost 1'25" having punctured, he fretted about getting the time back. Somehow, he felt entitled to have that time back. He needed to be among the contenders and, in the event of anything happening to Wiggins, he needed to be able to take over.

  He attacked on the stage which he won and he attacked on La Toussuire when he felt that Wiggins was safe. He’d gone 200m up the road when he got the message in his ear that Wiggins was ‘falling off the wheels’ and he sat up completely and paced him home.

  ‘A lot of public and media would have jumped onto that, and said I was trying to attack Brad and I wasn’t, I knew the yellow jersey was not an option for me unless something happened to Bradley.’

  As for the Pyrenees, it was a miscommunication. Nothing more.

  And what was the relationship between the two men heading into this season when Team Sky were hoping to expand their dominion?

  ‘I think that probably comes back to the way Bradley is, he’s not the most open guy, he keeps to himself a lot and a lot of people wonder where they stand with him and especially if it looked like you had just attacked him while he was in the yellow jersey, he’s probably got a good reason for not talking to me.’

  On the surface it seems so little separates the two men and so much should unite. The rift is counter to everything which Sky stand for. Quietly, as I spend more time with the team, I wonder who is a Wiggo man and who is a Froomey man, for within the squad there are two camps.

  Some riders like both men and are comfortable riding in a team led by either, others are more aligned with one or the other, but these are professional athletes. They have their own ambitions. If it’s good for them to ride for Wiggins, they’ll do that. And they will happily do the same for Froome.

  One dividing point becomes evident, however.

  Team Sky’s house rules are printed on a poster inside the team bus. In no particular order of importance they are as follows:

  TEAM SKY’S RULES

  We will respect one another and watch each other’s backs

  We will be honest with one another

  We will respect team equipment

  We will be on time

  We will communicate openly and regularly

  If we want our helmets cleaned we will leave them on the bus

  We will pool all prize money from races and distribute at the end of the year

  Any team bonuses from the team will be split between riders on that race

  We will give 15% of all race bonuses and prize money to staff

  We will speak English if we are in a group

  We will debrief after every race

  We will always wear team kit and apparel as instructed in the team dress code

  We will not use our phones at dinner – if absolutely required we will leave the table to have the conversation

  We will respect the bus

  We will respect personnel and management

  We will ask for any changes to be made to the bikes (gearing, wheel selection etc.) the night before the race and not on race day

  We will follow the RULES

  Nestled in the middle, seventh and eighth from the top: ‘We will pool all prize money from races and distribute at the end of the year’, and ‘Any team bonuses from the team will be split between riders on that race’.

  Bradley Wiggins has paid his teammates all he owes them from the prize money and bonuses accrued on the Tour de France. Paid everybody, that is, except Chris Froome. In terms of the rules, it is perhaps a tad more important than leaving a helmet on the bus if you want it cleaned. Inside the team it is whispered about, nothing more. Even riders who like Wiggins say he should have paid Froome his cut.

  As for the man who recruited Froome and Wiggins, the problem of their relationship is one which has consumed a lot of Dave Brailsford’s thinking time. People close to the team tell him he should have got the two riders in the same room, knocked their heads together and told them to behave like proper professionals.

  Brailsford’s approach is different, more conciliatory. He starts by recognising that the team exists to win bike races, especially the Tour de France. Having Froome and Wiggins on the same side gives the team the best chance of achieving that, so he feels it is his responsibility to do what he can to bring them closer.

  Froome had earned the right to lead the team in 2013 and in his eyes there was what he saw as an accumulation of debts since he had sacrificed himself on the 2011 Vuelta. He’d also seen little things which Wiggins had said or written about last year’s Tour and he wasn’t impressed by them.

  So from early on, no matter what Bradley Wiggins said about this year’s Tour de France and his own intentions, Froome was reluctant to trust his teammate to stick to the team plan. They rode together in the Tour of Oman at the beginning of the season. Froome won and seemed pleased with the help he’d had from Wiggins.

  Then they went their separate ways. Froome got the preferred route to the Tour: Tirreno-Adriatico, Critérium International, Tour de Romandie and Critérium du Dauphiné. Meanwhile, Wiggins used the Tour of Catalunya and the Tour of Trentin as his principal prep races for the Giro d’Italia. It was an unusual programme, for neither Catalunya nor Trentin had an individual time trial and his normal route to victory in stage races was blocked.

  Wiggins rode well enough in both but didn’t win. Without victories there was the sense that he wasn’t going as well as he did the previous year. Froome was winning virtually every race he rode and the 2012 Tour winner wouldn’t have been enthused by the perception that he’d become the secondary man. When Wiggins went to the secondary Tour, the Giro, he announced that while he would try to win the Italian race his focus was the Tour de France.

  ‘Does thi
s mean you see yourself as the leader [of the Tour team]?’

  ‘That won’t be decided until three days before the race or maybe not until we’re in the race where a natural hierarchy will become clear.’

  Across the cyclo-sphere, the sound that followed was the fluttering of wings as pigeons tried to escape the cat.

  This was the Tour de France champion standing up for himself. Lest you have forgotten, I am the guy who won last year’s race and as the cycling historians in your midst will know, there is little precedent for last year’s champion to be this year’s domestique.

  Twenty-seven years had passed since a defending champion agreed to chaperone his successor to victory.

  Remember what happened then.

  This was 1985-86. Bernard Hinault won the ’85 Tour but victory was tinged with controversy as his young American teammate Greg LeMond felt he had been held back. On a key Pyrenean stage to Luz Ardiden ski-station, LeMond broke away with the Irish rider Stephen Roche and with Hinault toiling, the American had the chance to forge ahead and show the world what he could do.

  Team manager Paul Koechli saw only the danger, knowing if Roche stayed with LeMond he would take the yellow jersey and jeopardise the team’s chance of winning the race. Deciding to override LeMond, Koechli ordered him to sit in behind Roche and not contribute to the pacemaking.

  How can you tell a man he mustn’t try his best to win?

  LeMond was American and blessed with a freer spirit than is commonly found in bike racers from the old continent. He argued. Koechli tried to explain it wasn’t in the team’s interests while LeMond talked about his own interests. In the end the La Vie Clair boss insisted and LeMond eventually slipped in behind his breakaway companion. Roche’s effort petered out and Hinault stayed in yellow.

  His victory was a record-equalling fifth but the story came with a footnote. He owed LeMond. Not to worry, he said, I will pay the debt next year.

  It is one thing to offer this pledge, another to honour it. Hinault was defending champion and when the 1986 Tour came round, he felt strong. Yes, he was going to help Greg but he wasn’t going to gift him the Tour de France. His view was that champions of every era had to earn the right to the yellow jersey.

  That year the race began with a prologue in the suburbs of Paris, and Hinault went quicker than LeMond. That got people thinking, most of all Hinault. Maybe he was still stronger than LeMond. The second X-ray of their form took place at Nantes eight days later, a 62km individual time trial. Again Hinault went faster than his team leader, this time by 49 seconds.

  What’s an old champion to do? Stand aside and let the kid have a victory he didn’t deserve? Pretend he is not interested in becoming the only man in history to win six Tours?

  To have done that would have been to say, ‘I am not a champion. Not a winner. Not a proud Breton. And my name is not Bernard Hinault.’

  Instead, Hinault played the man he was.

  Three days later he got his young ally Jean-François Bernard to help take him clear of LeMond in the Pyrenees and at the end of that eventful day, his lead over the American was more than five minutes.

  Climbing from his bike that evening, LeMond conceded he was riding for second place. He sounded like a coroner pronouncing his challenge dead. But that wasn’t enough for Hinault, who still wanted to drive a stake through his teammate’s heart. On the second Pyrenean stage he attacked on the Tourmalet, the first of four big climbs. On the early slopes of the Col d’Aspin, he was part of a group already three minutes ahead of LeMond.

  That meant he led the race by more than eight minutes. It was daring and exhilarating and . . . suicidal. On the third climb, the Peyrescourde, Hinault rediscovered frailty. Drained of energy, he wilted and the chasing pack, including LeMond, caught him before the summit.

  They knew then how little he had left for the final climb to Superbagnères and LeMond felt like a new man. Away on that climb, winning the stage and though he still trailed Hinault by 40 seconds, the Tour had turned his way. Four days later he would take the jersey from the old champion, never to relinquish it.

  The French never loved Hinault as much as they loved him through that Tour. They didn’t want their champion to be the American’s équipier. Hinault didn’t want it. He chose to die with his boots on.

  LeMond was invited onto a French television show, expecting the fact that he was the first American and first English speaker to win the Tour de France to be celebrated.

  First thing the host of the show said was, ‘Greg, le victoire pour vous, la gloire pour Bernard.’ What do you say in response to that?

  With this as a precedent, things didn’t bode well for Team Sky’s attempt at Tour champion relegation. When he spoke about focusing on the Tour and said he believed he could yet be Team Sky’s leader, Wiggins showed that a boy from Kilburn in London could be as proud and as obstinate as a Breton.

  But Brailsford has a team to run, a race to win and Wiggins’s suggestion that he could yet lead the team in France was close to anarchy. Froome was furious and put out a statement saying the team was fully supportive of him as leader. Brailsford didn’t need to hear from Froome to know how angry he was. The following day Team Sky issued a statement insisting Froome would be leader of their team for the Tour de France.

  ‘As always the team selection is a management decision and it will be evidence-based,’ said Brailsford. ‘However, it is crucial there is clarity of purpose and for that reason we will go to the Tour with one leader. Taking that into consideration and given Chris’s step up in performances this year, our plan, as it has been since January, is to have him lead the Tour de France team.’

  Brailsford still knew that a strong and committed Wiggins, riding for Froome, would be a huge asset to the team. Early on the 2013 Tour, we spoke in the team hotel car park and perching himself again on the shelf that runs across the back of the Camper SKY 18, he talked one day about the difficulty he faced when it seemed both men would be in the team for the Tour.

  He spent a long time trying to figure out how best to deal with a situation that had the potential to tear the team apart at the Tour.

  ‘I seriously considered this scenario,’ he says.

  ‘I would have the two of them in a room and I would say to Bradley, “Are you prepared to fully commit to a role where you would ride for Chris?”

  ‘He would say “Yes, I am.”

  ‘Saying that, he might mean it but I couldn’t be sure he would follow through on it and Chris certainly would not believe it.

  ‘Money is important to Chris, he makes that clear which I think is good. The guys that are more difficult to negotiate with are the guys who say that money is not a big issue for them, but two months later are not happy with what is agreed and it festers. So what I’d planned to do was ask Brad again, “Are you certain you will ride for Chris?” and he will say, “Yeah, certain.”

  ‘Then I would say, “Okay, if you don’t follow team orders we will agree to fine you three or four months’ wages.” This would be a significant amount of money, maybe as much as a few hundred thousand and I believed it would concentrate Brad’s mind. “Now, are you really committed to riding for Chris?”

  ‘I was then going to turn to Chris and say, “Right, Chris, if Brad goes against team orders, I’m going to give you that money.” And I believe Chris would have thought, “Okay, that’s decent compensation if this guy doesn’t do what he says he will do.” This could have worked. To win, you have to have “goal harmony” but not necessarily “team harmony”.

  ‘I don’t believe we ever had harmony inside the GB cycling team but when it came to the Olympics or the World Championships, everyone got on the same plan and would be totally together.’

  Brailsford never needed to put his plan into operation because Wiggins would go to the Giro d’Italia, lose his nerve on the descents in the first week, pick up a debilitating bug in the second week, and then struggle with a sore knee before being forced to quit the race.

&nb
sp; That compromised his preparation for the Tour de France and Dave Brailsford’s decision was made for him. The narrative was suspended for a while.

  Even in Team Sky fate sometimes runs the business.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘You are right, Watson. It mentions the legend in one of these references. But are we to give serious attention to such things? This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.’

  Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire

  On a Tuesday morning in 2010, 19 October to be precise, an urbane, bespectacled physician flew from his home in Belgium to Manchester and journeyed onwards to the higgledy-piggledy assortment of buildings which comprise the National Cycling Centre in Sport City. He was well dressed and well prepared.

  Dr Geert Leinders had come for an interview for a part-time position on Team Sky’s medical team. He would get the job he came for. And he would get more. He would get to become a symbol of cycling’s struggle with its own past . . .

  Haters, as they say blithely on social media, gonna hate. And when it comes to Team Sky there are an uncommon amount of haters. It is something you become aware of as soon as you start mixing with the team. The dislike which so many people have for them, and the team’s bafflement at their own unpopularity, creates a microclimate around them.

  A lot of people simply detest Team Sky. Why? For what they are and for what they are not.

  Let us count the ways. Some of them.

  Team Sky are monolithical. Those black team buses with the darkened windows, each coming in at £750,000 a pop and looking like something out of Thunderbirds. And the predominantly black uniforms with the azure stripe down the back, a stripe which is supposed to have some sort of meaning. They look like the secret police of the peloton.

  Team Sky are uppity. The Jaguars they use for support cars for instance – what’s wrong with a Skoda?