Derby Mercury

Road Racing and Grand Tours is all very new to Brailsford and his people. He has a lot to learn which he admits. He didn't build a successful track team overnight so he is very unlikely to do it on the road. Give him his 5 years and then we'll see how he's getting on.

I wonder if he tells the riders he signs it'll be 5 years before they get any success ?

I can't remember who said it (I think it might have been Vaughters actually) but I read a quote from someone that their experience of guys that lose a lot of weight is that they go well initially but then they struggle subsequently. This was before the start of the season so it wasn't a hindsight thing. Some physiological reaction to being under your 'true' weight I guess?
4% body fat cannot be healthy. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

tombutcher wrote:

QUOTE:
I wonder if he tells the riders he signs it'll be 5 years before they get any success ?

Plenty of success to be had without winning the Tour de France

Sky have been pretty poor all season though - Flecha has one decent win, Wiggins the Giro prologue, Boasson Hagen a couple of chippers in the Middle East and I'm struggling to think of much else. It's not just lack of wins either - most of the time they haven't been at the races. I mean we might not expect Boasson Hagen to beat Cav but the Sky attempt at leading him out in Paris was embarassing as Jeremy Hunt came round the Sky train with ease and Eddy ended up 17th. Aside from their PR they have been anonymous all year.

For the budget they had (million a year for Wiggins plus what it cost to buy him out) they have underperformed. If it was just Wiggins in the TdF you might write it off - anyone can have a bad race - but when it's most of the team in most of the races you start thinking maybe the Sky way of doing things isn't working.

This is well known in other sports, Judo, Boxing, etc, men who move down a weight often do well at first, then they fall apart and have to move back up a weight because they can't handle the training, get ill etc. Tends to really kick in over the age of 30.
Seeing as there is no specific test to prove body fat percentage, they do several different tests which don't always agree, so it is still guesswork, Wiggins could well be further into the danger zone than planned.

I have trained with people who have had this problem - they see rapid improvement, then there is a loss of form. I have made the same mistake myself, got ill and had to take 6 months off.

could be a number of things.......

maybe it is partly due to a lack of confidence brought on through not feeling 100%, he got spat out the back on the first serious climb(stage7 if i remember correctly.) and admitted he had to slow down due to being on the limit, as well as suffering in the heat. although he was positive 3 days before on the cobblse(stage3) after finishing 8th.

maybe he realised that much harder was round the corner and it dawned on him that he is gonna struggle. ???????????

sportsmen of all kinds suffer with "head injuries" when things aren't just right.......was it petecchi(sp) that said to cav...."it aint in your legs mate, its in your head".....look at cav at the start of the tour after a crash and a sprint falure, one good proformance picked him up and put him back on that cloud as cav puts it.

maybe brad kinda threw in the towel...........maybe something that simple.

Morgy wrote:

QUOTE:
Road Racing and Grand Tours is all very new to Brailsford and his people. He has a lot to learn which he admits. He didn't build a successful track team overnight so he is very unlikely to do it on the road. Give him his 5 years and then we'll see how he's getting on.

Dont forget the WCPP was Peter Keen's brainchild not Brailsford's! As I have stated before crossing to the road would always be a big ask in terms of replicating the success of the WCPP. There are so many more variables on the road as we have seen.

I am afraid that Wiggo's 4th place last year may be a fluke as I believe Wiggo said himself. Perhaps he therefore over-achieved last year thus increasing expectations this year to unrealistic levels - so nothing actually went wrong as such. After all you can count the number of Brit top twenty tdf finishers on one or two hands I would imagine.

Even Contador seemed to be struggling (yes I know its all relative) in the last time trial this year and the profile of both the giro and the tour were biased more towards climbing. Dont forward Wiggo is still a trackie / prologue rider reallly.

Sky do have people on their team with plenty of tour experience. Scott Sunderland before he left earlier this year and Sean Yates who rode 12 Tours, wore the Yellow Jersey, and worked for a certain Lance Armstrong's team for several years. It isn't as if they are nothing but back room boffins who can't operate outside a lab / track environment.

I am not sure the official reason Scott Sunderland left Sky is the whole truth. Did he agree with the teams preparation? Was he sat at home watching the Tour with a wry grin saying I told you so?

Trev wrote:

QUOTE:
Sky do have people on their team with plenty of tour experience. Scott Sunderland before he left earlier this year and Sean Yates who rode 12 Tours, wore the Yellow Jersey, and worked for a certain Lance Armstrong's team for several years. It isn't as if they are nothing but back room boffins who can't operate outside a lab / track environment.

I am not sure the official reason Scott Sunderland left Sky is the whole truth. Did he agree with the teams preparation? Was he sat at home watching the Tour with a wry grin saying I told you so?

I would agree with all that but the weight of expectation from the media and sky rested on Wiggo's shoulders and although a replication of or improvement on 4th didnt happen 17th is still very respectable.

Quite amusing to watch the sky reporters trying to put a positive spin on it all but perhaps Cav salvaged things from a Brit perspective after all. Suppose we will have to wait and see what happen next year and between now and then. Maybe Wiggo wil show somewhere like Paris Nice as he perhaps needs to.