Inside Team Sky (16 page)

What do you think about the other guys, he asks them, is everybody contributing do you think? Are you contributing as much as you can? What should change?

He asks his questions, receives his answers, and one by one the riders seem glad to have spoken. Brailsford has managed to get a feel for where they are at, any personal angst. He has isolated
those few issues which he thinks need to be addressed.

They get back to the hotel. Dave Brailsford begins putting the jigsaw together.

Tuesday, 9 July

Morning. Eight riders and Dave Brailsford on the Death Star bus. He speaks. They listen.

Brailsford leads the team into an open discussion. A classic Stop, Start, Continue.

What are we going to stop doing?

What are we going to start doing?

What are we going to continue to do?

A typical Brailsford solution. He is not the boss man here. He is the solutions guy. He outlines the state they are in. It’s all okay.

‘If you bring any group of individuals together these things happen. We have been together for two weeks. We went into Corsica under pressure.’

He knows the boys can’t get away from each other and after two weeks’ imprisonment little things become big things. Splinters under the skin. He said this. He did that. The way one
guy picks up his fork starts pissing another guy off. It’s irrational but human. He will try to reset the bar.

They know they had a bad day to Calvi. They know they had a worse day on Sunday. They know where everybody is at.

Now, here on the bus, this is the time to have the discussion. Not in private, guys saying what’s on their minds in front of everybody. This is Brailsford on his
terrain de
prédilection
.

He looks to Edvald, his talented young Norwegian. Edvald has the feeling that the team hadn’t cared if he got the yellow jersey or not at the time trial in Nice back at Stage Four. Yellow
was so close that Edvald was already picking out his matching cleats but he gave it up for the team. He wasn’t resentful because that’s not Edvald, but he had carried that
disappointment with him like a lead weight.

‘Edvald is disappointed he didn’t get the jersey. He feels that you guys felt no disappointment for him. He isn’t sure if you guys even want him sprinting. How do you feel
about Edvald sprinting? Let’s have some honest opinion.’

Honest opinion. Of course it comes from Pete Kennaugh, the oldest tyro in town.

Always when Kennaugh speaks they are reminded that the young rider from the Isle of Man carries the same chippiness that his fellow islander Mark Cavendish once brought to this team.

‘We are a racing team,’ says Kennaugh, ‘of course we are going to sprint. If Chris is safe and he says, “Okay, go for it,” then of course Edvald must go for
it.’

This is okay by Brailsford, who believes if Boasson Hagen gets the chance to win stages he will then have the morale to go and empty himself in the mountains for Froome. The same for Richie
Porte. Richie bombed in the second day in the Pyrenees on Sunday. Brilliant the first day. Crushed the second day.

There is an individual time trial coming up. Richie’s shot at a top ten finish is gone. Should he take it easy in the time trial or go out and give it everything?

The old school would have said, ‘No. Richie, you are here to conserve your energy.’ Porte would have said, ‘But the TT is my thing. I need that for me.’ The old school
wouldn’t have been interested, but Brailsford is not old school.

So he asks and Porte says that he would like to do the time trial flat out. That would give him the morale to give it everything in the mountains. He rooms with Chris Froome and they are close.
He won’t be letting anybody down.

Brailsford knows Rod Ellingworth feels that Porte should conserve his energy and Rod knows when to keep his counsel to himself.

Brailsford says, ‘You should go for it, Richie.’

Porte’s teammates want him to prove to the world that the guy who suffered this body blow could go out and show the world that he is one of the top time-triallists.

He adds that the team needs Richie and Froomey and Pete in top shape when they arrive at the bottom of Mont Ventoux. The team has targeted Ventoux from a long way out, they have always held it
as crucial in their march to Tour de France victory.

Ian Stannard is assigned a new job. From today he will chaperone Froome from 30km out to the finish. ‘Ian, you will be our guy for taking him there.’

This simplifies Stannard’s job. Gives him a new status in the team. He perks up.

Through this first week of the Tour, David López and Kosta Siutsou, who were expected to be two of the team’s strong climbers, have not been riding well enough to contribute
significantly. There were whispers from other riders that indicated dissatisfaction and, after Froome was left on his own for most of the ride to Bagnères-de-Bigorre, things worsened.

So Brailsford addresses the issue right here before the start of Stage Ten in Saint-Gildas-des-Bois:

‘David,’ says Brailsford, looking straight at López, ‘you are at eighty per cent, right?’

López quietly nods his agreement.

‘Nobody can blame you for that. It happens to everyone, but David what we need is one hundred per cent of your eighty per cent. You do that and everyone on this bus will be
happy.’

Brailsford is taking reality and reshaping it for his riders. What López had been doing through the first week was to measure out his effort each day to ensure that he got to the finish
without blowing up. Respectable on a personal level but not much good for the team.

Brailsford looks to the other riders and reiterated.

‘David and every other rider in this team needs a little success in the race, and we’ve got to make sure they have that.’

It wasn’t just López, but Siutsou as well. Brailsford outlines his new plan for the two under-performing riders.

Instead of expecting them to work for Froome at the end of the more difficult stages, they will now try to control the first 150km of the flatter stages. After the customary breaks of riders low
on General Classification clear, López and Siutsou will make sure it gets no more serious than a five-minute gap. For two thirds of the race they will give it everything and then pass the
baton.

Brailsford turns to the rest of the team. He tells them that he understands their disappointment that certain riders are not at their best, but that those riders are going to need to feel a
little bit of love and appreciation in the days to follow. When they do their job, and when they do it well, they will need the others to notice their contribution.

This is a reversal of the usual roles for López and Siutsou but in the coming days it will work. This morning both are pleased to be given jobs they know they can do. They feel drawn back
into the fold. As their morale improves, so too will their performance level.

Brailsford will meet his riders before each morning’s stage on the Tour, but in the three weeks of racing no other meeting will be like this. No other meeting will impact the team as this
one is going to.

In the space of a few minutes he has relaunched them psychologically and he has scrapped and redrawn the best-laid plans that he brought to France.

Sometimes the Tour de France is as much a planes, trains and automobiles experience as it is a bike race. Compared to the old days when different imperatives informed the
selection of the route the Tour took, this year’s route was three stages in Corsica, a ferry back to the mainland, a few days in the Pyrenees and then a jump up to Brittany. In 2014 the Tour
will linger amid the Francophiles of Yorkshire for two days before heading south and then evacuating to mainland Europe.

The hopping, skipping and jumping between stages is a logistical difficulty but it often brings sharp reminders of the new ways in which the Tour interfaces with the real world outside. When you
spend hours on end baking in a press tent, the talk of doping becomes so constant that the subject almost becomes abstract. People know because they know. Only rubes, dupes and suckers don’t
know or deny knowing. You forget that outside it is France, and these days in France doping is no longer a game.

Lest we forget when the French got serious on doping, introducing biological passports for sportspeople resident in their country before any other sports associations did the same, they also
handed the bulk of the responsibility for enforcing their policies to the police. Lance Armstrong moved from the south of France to Girona in Spain like Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Doping was no
longer an administrative issue, it was a big legal problem. A gas, gas, gas it ain’t.

On the first rest day of the Tour, the candidates for the UCI presidency circulate their messages. One such is Pat McQuaid, the controversial incumbent. The other is Brian Cookson of Great
Britain. Cookson has the rare distinction of being a sliver of common ground between the fallen Lance and me.

At the time he announced his candidacy for UCI presidency, I tweeted that all cycling fans should unite and support Brian Cookson in his attempt to end McQuaid’s reign. Armstrong was
impressed and retweeted my advice to his 3.9 million followers. Three point nine mill . . . all comes to he who waits!

Brian Cookson’s son Oli works for Team Sky as a performance assistant. You will never hear anybody tell you that he got the job because of his surname. It doesn’t work that way at
Sky and, by the way, Cookson junior is an impressive young man.

On the day in question, Oli picked up Rod Ellingworth from the airport at Nantes, after Rod had been home to help his wife Jane look after their little girl Robyn who was unwell. They drove
towards La Baule and the Hotel Majestic not far from the centre of town where the team were billeted.

Oli was driving the Jaguar XJR, the long wheel-base VIP car. Tremendously flash. It’s the top of the range and Team Sky use the car for ferrying VIPs.

Eight of the Tour teams are in La Baule on this main strip facing the sea and as Oli drives along he comes to a roundabout with a police check. He presumes the police are diverting the traffic.
Nothing out of the ordinary. He continues with this presumption until the police pull the Jag over onto the verge just by the roundabout.

So, a check of some sort. There are three or four of them. Bit heavy, but here goes.

He winds down the window. Naturally the policeman speaks in French. Oli can understand him but isn’t confident enough to converse. Rod can speak French but, when asked if they can, the
pair of them shake their heads, no. It’s easier that way. Nothing lost in translation.

The local constabulary aren’t planning on beating around the bush or admiring Oli’s wheels.

Are you carrying medicine?

Are you carrying blood?

The question is not asked in a neutral tone. More like a policeman asking a guy with long hair and a ratty kaftan not to waste any more time and to just hand over the hash. So straight off it
was ‘show us the medicine’.

‘Oh, we don’t have any,’ said Oli.

He could tell he was disappointing the police.

‘I’ve found a lot with French police that, maybe it’s just their way of being, but it seems like sort of aggressive to start and then once they talk to you then it’s fine
and relaxed, but, it was just, you know, not the best way to start these things.’

They spoke for a couple of minutes through the open window. One policeman spoke English and repeatedly he asked where the drugs were, the medicine.

Then he asked Oli what his role was, his job in the team?

‘Okay, performance coordinator.’

‘Ah, so you carry medicine?’

‘No, no medicine.’

It went on like that for a while. Then to Rod.

‘Performance manager.’

‘Oh, so you carry the medicine, no?’

‘No. No medicine.’

‘Okay, out of the car.’

They get out. No hustle and bustle. Things still cool.

‘Okay, empty your pockets.’

Oli had nothing in his pockets, he had placed it all in the central compartment of the car. Rod got his phone and his wallet out, but as he did so, laying them on the bonnet, Oli noticed one of
the other policemen had opened the back door and was going through his bag.

Oli couldn’t see what was going on: ‘Sorry, you can’t do that. You can’t go in my bag without me watching you going in my bag.’

‘Yes, we can.’

‘So what happens if you put something in there or, you know? I go to jail for two years and the whole team folds, it’s ridiculous.’

‘No, no, we can go where we want.’

‘Okay, well, let me see.’

So Oli started to walk round the car and told the policeman that now he could look where he liked.

‘Okay!’

At this point, another policeman went around to the other side of the car and they found the cooler, the mini little cool box of sandwiches. The policemen got excited at this, and Oli and Rod
could hear them going ‘
Oi oi oi oi
.’ Surely the perfect equipment for storing blood used in mobile transfusions?

The mini cool box was tucked in behind one of the front seats.

‘It was a Vittel bag, and then inside it there was a small hard cool box which the team use for VIP sandwiches because we don’t have much space, so it’s kind of a mini cool
box, about 25cm by 25cm by 30cm or something.’ The cool box turned out to be empty, because there were no VIPs that day. And it all would have been a bit comical if it hadn’t been so
serious. The police weren’t seeing any funny side.

‘Okay, well where are the drugs?’

‘Sorry, we don’t have any drugs. Well, not “sorry”, but we don’t have any drugs. Why would we have drugs?’