Inside Team Sky

by Walsh, David

  Iban Mayo’s ride in the 2004 Dauphiné was delivered at an apparent pace of 23.10kmh while Froome rode at a more sedate 21.86kmh. That’s quite a difference. However, this collection of times omits data from the Dauphiné of 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2007 because there wasn’t any data.

  Another site measures Tour rides only over just the final 15.65km, that is from the hairpin of le Virage de St Estève to the summit – 1368ft of elevation with an average gradient of 8.7 per cent. By this reckoning, Lance Armstrong’s ride in 2002 was the fastest ever at 48.33, with Froome coming in second at 48.35 mins.

  Five of the top ten times by this measure came in 2009, when Ventoux marked the last day of racing before Paris. The stage winner Juan Manual Garáte had a breakaway lead hitting Ventoux. He clung to that and his time isn’t among the top ten.

  Garáte commented at the time, though, that ‘It was very hard on the final climb, there was a lot of headwinds.’ Those winds were timed at 25kmh. Behind him a massive battle unfolded, however, with Armstrong, Contador, Andy and Frank Schleck and Roman Kreuziger all in the mix. Contrast that with 2013 when Team Sky’s high tempo on the climb, broken up by sudden accelerations, saw them catch Nairo Quintana who, having done so much to break away, was vulnerable to Froome’s last surge.

  The 2013 stage to Ventoux was longer than the 2009 version, but the four climbs preceding Ventoux were gentle – three of them category four. In 2009, Ventoux was again the fifth and final ascent as the stage approached from Montelimar but three of the four preceding climbs were category three.

  So the foundation for the statistics is notoriously unsteady to begin with, before we start adding twists.

  The newest twist on time stats has been to submit them to various equations depending on when they occurred: 2002-2008 is the doping era, 2008 onwards is for some reason (well, the biological passport) deemed to be the clean era (it is not worth asking about Armstrong and Contador in 2009).

  Now, to me, if you are going to compare statistics with any sort of academic rigour, you have to eliminate the variables, or else all the baseline data is faulty. The variables are considerable.

  First, the weather:

  Wind is the key factor. We are told that a 10kmh tailwind can give 40 watts of extra power. Both weather reports and riders’ testimonies suggest mainly tailwinds and crosswinds on Ventoux in 2013. In the inevitable deconstruction of the stage after the finish, Francesco Gavazzi [Astana] claims, ‘We had a tailwind from the start and this made the pace very high when we came to the base of Ventoux.’ Greg Henderson [Lotto-Belisol] even modestly admits, ‘Tailwind up the whole climb helped my watts per kilo, guys, so don’t get too impressed with my time up Ventoux.’ But these times are getting people impressed. Because they are being compared to times posted in 2009, done riding into a strong headwind in the ‘clean era’. Again in 2000, reports suggest Pantani and Lance racing into a headwind.

  And what about the man himself? Did Froome feel a tail-wind delivering him to the top that day?

  ‘Everyone talked about this front wind from the left, front crosswind, that you normally get once you go out of the forest there. But we went up there, I certainly didn’t feel any of that, so I’ve got to assume it was a tailwind.’

  So it’s the case, I ask, that you feel a disruptive wind but not a charitable one? That if you don’t feel a thing it’s probably because you’re getting a little help?

  ‘That’s it. That’s it, one hundred per cent.’

  We know from the rider in question that in 2004 Iban Mayo had a side/tailwind for most of the final 6.5km of his record-breaking climb. Wind is a massive variable but so too is humidity. Where is the reliable measure of the humidity down on the plains as the peloton pounds towards Ventoux?

  If you want to run the forensics over the dry dust of statistics it is best not to try it on a mountain named for its susceptibility to winds. Ventoux (from venteux, meaning windy) is defined by the mistrals which rake over its scalp all day and all night, giving the mountain its own micro climate. The plains of Provence down below may slumber and swelter in a heat so still and intense that it weighs upon the shoulders, while at the same time, up high on Ventoux, the winds and rains can feel like you have ridden into another season or another planet.

  Energy levels:

  Everybody hits the mountain feeling differently. These are humans, not machines. Team Sky, with their usual attention to detail, arranged for a feeding station at the base of Ventoux for their riders. Nobody else did.

  Schedule:

  Where in the race does a particular ascent come? How many stages, how many miles, and how many ascents have riders had in their legs before they get there?

  Tactics:

  Has a rider been left on his own all day, or protected and drafted to within sight of the finish line. Has it been a day of persistent breaks? What were the team orders? How do you assess the contribution of Porte and Kennaugh in a scientific analysis of Froome’s performance?

  Strength of the peloton:

  In 2013 the previous year’s winner (Wiggins) and third place finisher (Nibali) weren’t present. Jurgen Van den Broeck (fourth in 2012) crashed out after five stages. Tejay van Garderen (fifth in 2012) lost 13 minutes on the first climb of the Tour. Other ‘contenders’ Valverde and Contador didn’t have the strength many thought they would.

  You don’t have to have graduated from the University of Wikipedia to figure that one out.

  Manufacturing science:

  Are all bikes and equipment created equal? No. Is the rolling resistance of all tyres the same? No? Is the drag exerted on every rider the same or even constant? No. Do these things change between riders and between the years in which the stats are taken? Yes.

  Doping:

  There is a certain attraction in saying that all figures in a certain timespan are to be considered ‘doping’ figures, but the assumption that all dopers consumed the same PEDs (Performance-Enhancing Drugs) at the same times with identical physiologies, therefore experiencing the same effects, undermines the whole business. If Lance has a nice big blood transfusion the night before a big climb but Jan just has a little testosterone patch applied, do we attach the same statistical weightings to their rides? Discuss.

  Genetic outliers and geniuses:

  Are we to eliminate the possibility that cycling can produce a Federer, a Messi, a Woods or a Bolt? Froome grew up in Kenya for instance, at altitude, cycling mountains for fun. We have never had a Kenyan ride the Tour before. The pool from which we are finding cyclists grows. Is it strange to expect better riders if the nets are cast more widely?

  At the end of the day, all we know is that Chris Froome wasn’t the fastest man ever up Mont Ventoux. It wasn’t the greatest performance ever seen. He wasn’t selling ‘shock and awe’ as Paul Kimmage suggested.

  If we want statistics which will survive argument and dispute, we need lab conditions, identical equipment, riders of same weight and body fat composition, same bike set-up and saddle angle, riding in a controlled environment, etc.

  Until then, accusing a rider of being guilty according to stats is as valid as pronouncing him clean because he hasn’t failed a drug test.

  The easiest part of investigating Lance Armstrong was to say that he was very fast and therefore there was a chance he was very dirty. The hard part was all the rest: establishing the connections and visits to Ferrari, the pattern of payments, the witness evidence from his admission to an Indianapolis hospital in 1996, evidence from those who shared the same toxic environment, the background to his failed test in 1999, his payments to the UCI, the habits and attitudes of those he surrounded himself with, his weak responses when being asked about these things, the pattern of his movements (abandoning France to live in Girona when the French police stepped up their interest in doping matters), his attitude to outspoken clean riders, the background of those advising him and guiding him, and on, and on, ad infinitum.

  I spent a good portion of 2013 living with Team Sky
and applying those questions to them. I was aware that their reputations weren’t the only ones at stake. My reputation was impugned from the time I decided to see what was on the inside. But, on the inside, I found nothing that sent alarm bells ringing. I found no doors locked.

  I used my senses. And more importantly I used some sense. I had a lot to lose, so I needed to.

  At the Park Inn Hotel on the evening of 14 July the mood in Team Sky is buoyant. Alan Farrell stands outside on this balmy French evening looking for someone to relive the day with. Chris Haynes keeps an eye out for the return of the yellow butterfly. Gary Blem loves this evening because tomorrow’s rest day means he and the team of mechanics will have time to draw breath and prepare mentally for the final push through the Alps and on to Paris.

  Bikes, of course, are still being washed and cleaned. In the rooms, carers are reviving tired bodies. Mont Ventoux has taken its toll. If you eavesdrop on the conversation between Brailsford and Tim Kerrison, the race that matters is their own race up Ventoux the following day.

  They ride together during the Tour, mostly very early in the morning but on rest days they go for a proper ride. Staying in Orange, they will retrace the steps of Froome, Quintana, Porte and the others up Mont Ventoux, and there is much teasing and banter about how this mano à mano will pan out. The smart money says Kerrison.

  Mechanic Igor Turk is from Slovenia, and at first I couldn’t fathom him. A big man, with big arms and eyes that seem to see more than the face revealed. For a few days, I had the impression he viewed me as you would a zebra on a working farm – exotic, but not contributing much to productivity.

  Then one evening in a hotel where the rooms were particularly hard to locate, I asked if he knew where 302 was and, rather than try to explain, he took me there. This invited conversation and I asked if he was enjoying being on the Tour. Not really, he said, because he didn’t like being away from his family and he liked to draw a line through each day as it passed.

  ‘It’s another day closer to home,’ he said.

  That broke the ice and from that moment I could see Igor as everyone in the team saw him. A strong man, mentally as well as physically, who liked to laugh. As the Tour wore on, that laugh became more noticeable and I understood: another day closer to home.

  Here in Orange on this Sunday evening, every Sky staffer is smiling.

  ‘Did you see Froomey when he accelerated away from Quintana?’

  ‘Richie did some ride; see how the group disintegrated when he went to the front?’

  This is a day to celebrate, for it leaves Froome with a vicelike grip on the race and only something unforeseen can stop him. But Sky isn’t good at celebrating. ‘At HTC [his previous team],’ Gary Blem told me during the Giro, ‘we were smaller, had less resources, were less organised but we had a lot of fun. This [Team Sky] feels more corporate.’

  This is something they’ve spoken about and, in keeping with the team’s commitment to trying to improve, there’s been a conscious effort to celebrate the good moments this year.

  When Rigoberto Urán won the tenth stage of the Giro d’Italia at Altopiano del Montasio in the Apennines, riders and staff members gathered for a glass of champagne before supper. Dave Brailsford said a few words and there were calls for the popular Urán to speak. He is a good rider but it’s not often he gets to stand in that section of limelight occupied by Froome and Wiggins.

  So, he began his victory speech thus: ‘My name is Rigoberto Urán, I am a rider with Team Sky . . .’ everyone laughed and understood, Wiggins enjoying the joke as much as anyone. When Urán finished, someone shouted, ‘Now in English, please?’

  But here at the Park Inn at Orange on this Bastille evening, there is cause for greater celebration. Froome’s win on Ventoux is the team’s best day of the year so far, for it has been a spectacular victory and it’s now hard to see how he can lose the Tour. That the good times arrive when the team has camped for two days at a decent hotel in a pretty and historic town adds to the occasion.

  Team Sky eat in a room specially set aside for them. Riders sit at one table, the staff are at two others, and bottles of champagne and glasses are laid out on a fourth table. Igor and fellow mechanic Richard Lambert have been asked to serve the bubbly, a touch that reflects the attention given to the smaller details.

  Froome then thanks everyone, staff and teammates, for the help he’s received. He speaks for less than a minute but looks from one member of staff to another, his eyes conveying as much gratitude as his words. Such is his status within the team that it is incumbent upon Brailsford to speak at times like this.

  It is not a duty he either takes lightly or that weighs heavily.

  ‘Since the last rest day, we’ve had some real challenging days, no? I think we’ve faced more challenges in this race than we have probably in the last couple of years put together, really. And I think the way that you’re coping, and the way that you’re handling it, and the way we’re riding, pulling together as a team, is phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal.

  ‘Froomey, you’re leading the lads brilliantly, you’re doing a fantastic job. But equally, all of you guys, each one of you has your own little story along the way. You know, G [Thomas] won’t stop moaning about his broken pelvis; we’ve seen the X-ray photo, G, we’ve seen it! Honestly, we’ve all seen it.

  ‘Pete threw himself down a ditch, Ian was on his arse and hurt his back, David’s fighting his heart out, Kosta’s doing a brilliant job, and Richie today you, once again, you were phenomenal. Once you put your foot on the gas after Pete went, boom, they all disappear.

  ‘And then it’s up to Froomey to do the rest. So you’re all doing a brilliant job, and from a staffing point of view, it’s not easy when other teams give us some shit, as they have been doing. You can go one way or another, you can either let it really bother you, and crumble.

  ‘Or, you put your backs against the wall and you come out fighting, and you pull together. And we stick together and look after each other and tell ’em all to fuck off basically. And show them what we’re made of. And I think credit to you all, thanks ever so much because you’re doing a fantastic job.

  ‘Froomey, just keep doing what you’re doing, let’s stay calm. Let’s not get over excited. We’ve got some tough days coming up and if we can just keep doing what we’re doing now, you’re gonna win this race, mate. For sure. So let’s stick together, let’s look after each other and also, let’s enjoy this evening because it’s not often you get a guy, a British guy, on the top of Mont Ventoux, not far from the Tom Simpson memorial.’

  This heartfelt tribute is interrupted by a heckler from the riders’ table.

  ‘Kenyan. A Kenyan guy,’ G Thomas says.

  Brailsford recognises the voice.

  ‘British. British, British,’ says the team boss who then tries to come over all hurt, ‘I expected a little bit more than that, G.’

  Thomas is laughing, unrepentant. ‘And all them British people who will see him wear that thing he wears to massage,’ he says, referring to Froome’s kikoy, a sarong-like piece of clothing traditionally worn by men in East Africa.

  Not winning against Thomas, Brailsford returns to safer terrain.

  ‘But Mont Ventoux. Centenary Tour. Yellow jersey. To win like that at the top of Mont Ventoux – fuck me, that is an incredible, incredible performance, you know? And that’ll last for years and years. Legendary stuff. So well done everybody, but let’s stay on it.

  ‘Ready, ready Pete? You start it.’

  The last sentiment is a request to Pete Kennaugh to initiate Team Sky’s celebratory chant. Kennaugh passes it on to the second directeur sportif Servais Knaven. ‘He’s better than me at this, he’s my inspiration.’ Knaven stands holding his glass in the air and begins: ‘Oooohhhhhhh.’ Then everyone joins in: ‘AaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHH.’

  It lasts for seven or eight seconds but with every voice contributing to the rising volume, the effect is stunning. And here, not far from the scene of
Froome’s triumph on Ventoux, the team shows it is getting the hang of celebrations. Everyone sits down and smilingly drains their champagne. Nineteen days on the Tour, this is a high point.

  But then the spell is broken.

  He walks in unannounced, a youngish man, mid-thirties, medium height. Before anyone realises who he is or why he’s come, he goes straight to Froome. They speak for a minute or so and then this young man walks back towards the door, pulls up a chair and sits alone, facing the riders’ table.

  By now everyone gets it. He is a doping control officer and has come for a sample of Froome’s blood. One of his colleagues had come to the hotel that morning, another blood test, and Froome had done the post-race urine test, an obligation for the wearer of the yellow jersey.

  Three tests in one day but there isn’t a hint of disapproval. Not a scintilla of resentment towards the one who killed the music. He’s got his job to do. As for the celebration, it was like a cow’s tail. All it lacked was length to reach the moon.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘When you’re climbing at high altitudes, life can get pretty miserable.’

  Sir Edmund Hillary

  Before the sun goes down on any particular day Team Sky are already preparing for what will happen when the sun comes up again the next.

  If it is too cold or too hot, the mechanics are in a special climate-controlled truck washing the bikes and checking the tyres. Every bike. Every tyre. The physios and soigneurs are performing a similar service on the riders. Neil Thompson, the mechanic from Jaguar, is checking the fleet of cars. Provisions are being prepared.

  Tomorrow is Alpe d’Huez. A special circumstance. Rod Ellingworth and Mario Pafundi have already talked it through. The logistics of getting the Team Sky armada to the top of the Tour’s most famous climb while that climb is temporary residence to the population of a decent city are too much. The bus won’t be seeing the summit.