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CHAPTER 4

THE BEST SPORTS TEAM IN THE WORLD

‘You can’t teach experience.’

Scott Sunderland

Kilmarnock, 31 October 2009

With one hand, Bradley Wiggins jabs a finger accusingly. With the other, he is holding a bottle of red wine. A straw pokes out the neck of the bottle, bobbing like a cork in a choppy ocean. Wiggins takes a swig (ignoring the straw), then lifts his arm and jabs his finger again.

‘You lot just wanna see me fail! You wanna see me fall flat on my face!’ he says, addressing a small group of journalists. He is smiling. Joking. Half-joking. Maybe.

The Tour de France, and Wiggins’ fourth-place finish in Paris, seems a long time ago. Then again, to Wiggins, lunchtime probably seems a long time ago. It was then that he had boarded a train in Preston, bound for a charity dinner in Kilmarnock, accompanied by his wife, Cath, and armed with booze. (We know this from Wiggins’ lunchtime Twitter update: ‘On train with @cathwiggins heading to Braveheart doo tonight, Got a bag of Stella and a bottle of red, the day starts here!’)

Now it’s midnight. But this is the Wiggins of legend, not least of his own legend. As he relates in his autobiography, In Pursuit of Glory, when he’s ‘on’, he’s really on – no wheat, no gluten, no sugar, no booze. But when he’s ‘off’, he’s really off, and capable of sinking a dozen pints in his local pub during the all-day sessions in which he said he indulged for a couple of months after the Athens Olympics in 2004. It wasn’t unusual, he recalled, for him to follow an all-day session in the pub with a shared bottle of wine in the evening, before polishing off some of the Belgian beer he keeps in the cellar – or kept in the cellar, until he realised it was all gone. Tonight, in Kilmarnock, he’s most certainly ‘off’: off season, off the bike, off the leash, off his head, on the lash.

‘You-lot-just-wanna-see-me-fail,’ slurs Britain’s brightest hope for Tour de France glory, the words ceasing to be separate entities and congealing messily. ‘You-wanna-see-me-fall-flat-on-my-face.’

At the same time as Wiggins’ big night out in Kilmarnock (next day’s tweet: ‘Braveheart doo done and dusted, great dinner and a great cause. Hungover like a MOFO’) – and perhaps even explaining his excess – the will-he-won’t-he join Team Sky saga was becoming ridiculous.

Cycling, a sport with no real transfer market, and a noble tradition of riders honouring contracts, had never seen anything like it. The pursuit of Wiggins by Team Sky, who were depicted as arrogantly waving their chequebook in Vaughters’ and Garmin’s face as they tried to lure their rider, drew criticism, as did their attempted signing of another British rider, the Academy graduate Ben Swift, who had also signed a two-year contract at the start of the 2009 season with the Russian Katusha team.

Still the will-he-won’t-he Wiggins affair rumbled on, with Wiggins firing off angry tweets every time the story was reported, as though he wanted it all kept under wraps (and even though most reports were entirely accurate: Team Sky were trying to buy Wiggins out of his contract). Wiggins tried to keep out of it, and to get back into training, but the uncertainty was, he later admitted, unsettling; hardly ideal at a time of the year when the party season is supposed to be winding down, and the hard work beginning. On 5 November, 18 days before Team Sky’s first get-together in Manchester, and with 17 riders already named, it was reported that a Sky delegation were in New York meeting a Garmin delegation. It was in the hands of lawyers now, it seemed (though the New York story was erroneous).

As urgent as the pursuit of Wiggins seemed – as, indeed, it had become, with so much now riding on the eventual outcome due to the fact that Team Sky had no obvious leader, nor, without Wiggins and Cavendish, either of the British A-listers – contingency plans were drawn and re-drawn throughout 2009. The recruitment of a Tour contender, or at least someone capable of aiming for the podium, was essential, and so it was a topic of regular discussion and debate between the key decision-makers: Dave Brailsford, Shane Sutton and the senior sports director, Scott Sunderland.

Carlos Sastre, the 2008 Tour de France winner, was discussed as a potential signing, and three meetings held with his representatives. Sunderland, who had worked with Sastre at the CSC team, pressed the case for the Spaniard, who, approaching his mid-thirties, could act as a mentor to the younger riders. For one thing, Sunderland said he was confident that Sastre was clean. ‘I’d stick my hand in the fire for Carlos,’ he told Sutton. (It’s a German saying popular in Belgium. Sunderland, an Australian who’d lived in Belgium throughout his racing career, was almost a naturalised Belgian.)

However, with Sastre there was the same problem as with Wiggins: he was under contract for 2010 to the team that Sunderland had helped set up and then left, the Cervelo TestTeam. Alberto Contador, now a double Tour winner, was also discussed. Again, though, and despite contact being initiated with Contador’s manager – his brother, Fran – interest in the Spaniard was dropped before it really developed.

A concrete offer was made to the young Italian rider, Vincenzo Nibali. Nibali, who finished three places behind Wiggins at the 2009 Tour de France, would have earned a salary of €1m had he joined Team Sky. He opted, however, to stay with the Italian Liquigas team. And so the nascent British team still resembled a headless beast: with the infrastructure, the staff and most of the riders in place – but no leader.

Two weeks later, on 20 November, L’Equipe reported that Wiggins had signed with Sky. But Vaughters refuted that. ‘Brad has a contract with Garmin for 2010,’ he told Cycling Weekly through gritted teeth. ‘That is my statement. If [L’Equipe] has such a great source, they should reveal him/her.’

Three days later, 24 riders gathered in a hotel on the outskirts of Manchester for a week-long camp. They included some big names: Tour de France stage winner, cobbled Classics specialist and free spirit Juan Antonio Flecha of Spain; the young, talented, very raw and very shy Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen; the Swede with boy band looks, Thomas Lofkvist; Simon Gerrans, an Australian with stage wins in all three Grand Tours, of France, Italy and Spain. But still no Wiggins – and still no leader for the Grand Tours, though Lofkvist was now talking up his prospects in the Swedish press. The Swede assumed that, if Wiggins didn’t join, he’d be de facto team leader.

The Manchester camp, held in a hotel just off the M60, was a get-together and a bonding session. It was not a training camp. Which was just as well, since the week provided a stark introduction to Manchester weather: every day featured slate grey skies, driving rain and biting cold. When they weren’t in meetings, they mooched around the reception area and the Starbucks by the entrance, their tans and tracksuits marking them out from the businessmen in suits who hurried past. (Brailsford had been more or less living in a similar hotel nearby for many of the previous months, as he worked around the clock to set up Team Sky, while also fulfilling his responsibilities as British Cycling performance director. His long-term residence at the Holiday Inn led some colleagues to christen him ‘Alan Partridge’, after Steve Coogan’s comic character, who was also a long-term resident in an anonymous hotel.)

But the weather hardly dulled the sense of anticipation. There was a sense that the riders were involved in something new, something different, something exciting. It was infectious.

On the first night a reception was hosted by Brailsford, who called the riders to the stage, one by one. There, he presented them with their new team jersey. It was the first glimpse they’d had of the striking Adidas black-and-blue kit. It was stark, minimalist, far removed from the garish collages of sponsors’ names and logos sported by some of the other teams in the peloton; the shorts were retro black, with the shirts featuring black on the front (black disperses heat) and white on the back (white reflects heat) with a thin sky-blue line (symbolising the ‘narrow line’ between success and failure).

‘When we were presented one by one on the stage, and handed the jersey by Dave B, it was pretty emotional,’ said the Australian rider Chris Sutton, Shane’s nephew. ‘It was the first time we’d seen it. It gives meaning to what you do. I wasn’t going to cry, but …

‘It’s blown me away actually,’ continued Sutton. ‘The way they’ve organised things, the structure they’ve set up for this team, and what they want you to achieve. I expected big things but the camp exceeded my expectations. Everyone seems to be on the same wavelength, and to want the same thing. I’ve known about the British track programme for a long time through Uncle Shane and Dave B. I could see that it was all about the riders – that the emphasis is on them, and they’re really supported. It’s why I wanted to join the team.’

There were riders involved who’d been in big teams, yet they’d never experienced anything like the buzz of being part of Team Sky. Even little details – sky-blue, Team Sky-branded M&Ms, sky-blue, Team Sky-branded iPhone covers, not to mention the iPhones and laptops – helped foster a sense that this would be, above all else, different to other teams. The very fact that the week wasn’t a training camp, but a get-together, with the emphasis on talking and planning, was in itself different. ‘We had one meeting that lasted five hours,’ said Steve Cummings, a straight-talking, down-to-earth Merseysider. ‘I still haven’t got over it, to be honest.’ At school, he admitted, ‘I didn’t like the classroom, I’d rather be out doing things, playing football, riding my bike.’ But he appreciated the need for planning and the attention to detail. He was a professional, now 28, who had also ridden for another team that had upped the ante, Lance Armstrong’s Discovery Channel squad. ‘Discovery Channel was better than anything else at the time,’ said Cummings, ‘but this is different, it’s more advanced; it takes it up a level. The attention to detail, wanting to go that little step further for every rider …’

For Geraint Thomas, another of the British riders, it was ‘a dream’. The Academy graduate had ‘dreamed of becoming a pro, and of riding with a British team. We’re there now; we’re on the map. If we can take the principles from the track team across to the road I don’t see why we can’t be the best in the world. It’s mega. Seeing all the riders come together, the kit, it’s really exciting. I can’t wait to get going.’

For Serge Pauwels, a Belgian rider who’d signed from Cervelo, another team that had upped the ante when they entered the peloton in 2009, there was a different focus at Team Sky. ‘Last year in Cervelo there was also a lot of attention to detail, but there the focus was on technology, not on performance,’ said Pauwels. ‘Here, performance is the focus.’ And for Michael Barry, an experienced Canadian who’d ridden with Lance Armstrong’s US Postal team, and also alongside Mark Cavendish at HTC-Columbia, it was all about the ‘philosophy’. ‘I’ve noticed what they’ve done on the track, what they’ve accomplished,’ said Barry. ‘A lot of teams select riders based on their results in the past, and based on their proven potential rather than their projected potential. This team wants to get the most out of every individual, and for an athlete that’s the perfect environment to be in. Because we all want to get the most out of ourselves. If we have the support to do that, we can achieve more than we’ve achieved before.’

Barry, one of the more thoughtful and eloquent members of the peloton – who had written a book about his experience with Armstrong’s team – was also attracted to the team’s wider goal: its mission to encourage people to ride bikes. Strange as it may seem, promoting cycling is not a common goal for professional cycling teams. In fact, it is unheard of. ‘I mean, yeah, we might motivate people to ride bikes by what we do,’ said Barry, ‘but here there’s a direct correlation between the team and getting more people riding bikes. This really appeals to me. Thinking back to when I was a kid, and why I wanted to be a cyclist, it was the interaction we had with cyclists, seeing what they do, being inspired by them. That connection, between racing cyclists and cycling for fun, or for transport, is very rarely made.

‘Basically,’ added Barry, ‘this sounded like a team with a new philosophy and I thought, oh man, I want to be part of it, it sounds exciting. It’s about thinking outside the box. Cycling tends to be a very traditional sport. People are scared to make changes or try new things; they’re apprehensive. But this team has the personnel and the resources to do that.’

Mat Hayman, an Australian domestique and cobbled Classics specialist who had joined Team Sky after 10 years with the Dutch Rabobank team, was similarly impressed. In fact, he had wondered whether the idea he’d been sold had been too good to be true. ‘I spent two days trying to get to Manchester,’ said Hayman. ‘I missed my connecting flight to Europe, and I was trying to phone all the guys – Dave Brailsford, Shane Sutton, Scott Sunderland. All their phones were turned off, and at that moment I was thinking this might be a big hoax.’ Hayman’s scepticism was understandable. Four years earlier, the legendary Italian directeur sportif Giancarlo Ferretti announced that he’d secured sponsorship from Sony-Ericsson and began signing riders, only to then learn that he’d been the victim of a hoax (and not even a very elaborate hoax; Ferretti had concluded the deal entirely by email, with a ‘Sony Ericsson’ executive using the email address: ronwestland-sonyericsson@hotmail.com).

‘At the start some of the things that Scott and Dave were telling me sounded too good to be true,’ Hayman continued. ‘But what Sky have done, it seems to me, is that they’ve put their faith in Dave and that British Cycling group. I can imagine those guys walked into a room and said what they want to do for cycling, and that’s why they bought into it. They sold it to me on the basis that the riders would have control, which is something I can’t see Italian teams going for …

‘Listen, this is killing the Aussies,’ Hayman continued, ‘because we’ve been trying to get something like this off the ground for years. The British guys don’t know how lucky they are, to go in at ground zero on this. There’s Russell Downing, he’s fought for every minute to get here. It’s great for the young guys, they’ve got the world in front of them, and for Russ, who gets the chance he probably deserved a few years ago.

‘It’s a British team but a few of us were reflecting, it hasn’t been “British this, British that”. We’re Team Sky. If the Union Jack had been on the kit I’d have got my pen out and added some stars.’ They wouldn’t be playing ‘God Save the Queen’ in the bus in the mornings, Hayman added. ‘Although the old girl is still my queen, too.’

Dan Hunt, one of the coaches who Brailsford had promoted from his work with the track cycling team (Hunt coached Rebecca Romero to her gold medal at the Beijing Olympics), said that their ambition was no less than ‘to become the best sporting team in the world, across all sports’. Barry shrugged his shoulders as he was asked whether that was achievable. ‘For sure that is achievable. It’s a big reason I came here. There’s a lot of work. But I wouldn’t want to come to a team that said: our goal next year is to be average.’

Shane Sutton, meanwhile, shed some light on how this might be accomplished. He would be in charge of overseeing the coaches, as he had been at British Cycling. ‘Mine is more of a mentoring role to the younger coaches and sports directors,’ explained Sutton. ‘For us it’s about the mission. With the track programme the mission is to win Olympic medals. We’re aiming just as high on the road. With the technology we can use, we’ll know where the athletes are at every stage of the race in terms of their condition and how they’re feeling. We’ll have all the scientific data – heart rates, power outputs, all that. A road race is like starting a journey with a full tank of petrol and distributing it evenly over the race, making sure you’re empty at the end of it.

‘In my days as a rider there was none of this,’ continued Sutton, whose career included one start of the Tour de France, with the ill-fated British team, ANC-Halfords, in 1987. ‘The game’s moved on. But with the association with a company like Sky we could really move it on some more. Look at the sports Sky have been involved with. Football – they’ve revolutionised it. They’ve made darts players into household names! They don’t do things by halves. We’ve got the same mentality. Cycling is our life.

‘We’ve done a great job on the track,’ continued Sutton. ‘Now let’s see what we’re capable of on the road.

Throughout the week in Manchester Dave Brailsford talked to the riders; he talked to them individually and as a group; he talked and he talked. He infused everyone with his own enthusiasm; he bestrode the gathering like a colossus; he was omniscient. Of course, for successful sports coaches or managers reputation is everything, and Brailsford’s – following the success he’d masterminded in Beijing – could hardly have been higher.

Like all the best managers, Brailsford seemed able to get the best out of people. In Manchester he presided over the camp, and the countless meetings, with confidence and a sense of certainty, which fed into and reinforced the aura around him. His staff reinforced it, too. ‘People like Dave come along once in a lifetime,’ said Sutton. ‘I’ve been fortunate to be in Dave’s time. Listen, I think there are three key things behind our success: great leadership, which Dave’s given us; a great coaching system; and gifted athletes who want to aspire to achieve things on the big stage. Now we’ve also got the Sky empire behind us. We’re setting out with a full tank of petrol.’

‘What’s Dave like?’ said Dan Hunt, repeating the question. ‘Well I’ve worked with him for just over four years. And I’d say … Fantastic. He’s a good boss, a good leader; he’s motivational and inspirational. He’s hard but pretty fair. I’ve survived four years, anyway.’

Above all else, though, what Brailsford was in Manchester was in charge. And being in charge is a good place to start.

And yet several of the riders were also surprised by another aspect of the new team. Though Brailsford was in charge, he said he wouldn’t be a dictator. Team Sky would be a democracy, he told the riders. They would all have a say in decision-making, just as the track team had done. In fact, this system of management had evolved with the track team, particularly after disputes over team selections. ‘What the riders want to know, more than anything else,’ said Brailsford, ‘is who picks the team, and what are the selection criteria.’ After one dispute with the track sprinting team, Brailsford and his team charged them with drawing up the selection criteria. ‘They went away and tried for hours to come up with criteria they were all happy with, and they couldn’t do it,’ said Brailsford. ‘But at least they understood how difficult it was.’ And they felt empowered, he added.

Here in Manchester, as Mat Hayman noted, Brailsford challenged the riders of Team Sky to draw up their own rules – over timekeeping; selection for the Tour de France; whether to have internal drug-testing, or not. ‘The riders make the decisions,’ said Kurt Asle Arvesen, another experienced rider, and an exile from the Saxo Bank team. ‘That’s something new for me. I think it’s going to be great; we’ve made our own rules! Now, if we don’t follow them, well, they’re our rules. We did some of the same things at Saxo Bank, but we didn’t go as far as this.’