Inside Team Sky (29 page)

This has been a strange Tour. The Clouded Yellow butterfly that Team Sky’s media chief Chris Haynes had seen in Corsica had followed us all the way to the Alps. On this pivotal stage,
Froome had really struggled, yet he climbed off his bike at the finish on Alpe d’Huez with his lead extended. Contador is over five minutes behind now.

Two stages left before the ride to Paris.

There were no recriminations about the accident that fried the electronics in the team car and could have hurt the team even more than it did. Mario Pafundi felt it was his
responsibility because he hadn’t done enough to help David Rozman and Marko Dzalo make a better decision about the ice.

‘On a day when everyone says it’s going to rain on Alpe d’Huez, you don’t need ten thousand ice cubes. But it’s my responsibility, I should have given them that
information.’

That evening, Neil Thompson, the mechanic provided by Jaguar to be there if anything should go wrong with any of the cars, worked on the messed-up electronics from 6pm to midnight. ‘If you
can imagine pouring a litre of water down the back of your television while it is on, that’s the problem I was trying to sort out.’

This is Thompson’s second Tour with Sky. Before this, he had no interest in cycling. Football is probably his game. He manages his son’s team and when he says they went through last
season without winning, he wants you to understand he could never see sport as a matter of life and death. But this car, he badly wanted it back on the road. Thought he had it, all those flashing
lights went away, but then late in the night, a warning light for the air-suspension system came back to haunt him and he knew he was struggling. He went to bed worried, woke up worried, and when
he went to the car first thing in the morning, he threw up, anxiety churning away until his stomach could take no more.

‘I know it shouldn’t matter so much, but I want this team to win. We needed the car back in the race and now I’m probably going to have to pull it out.’

You can tell the man’s heart is breaking. These are people he never wants to let down.

This will be the third and final time on this Tour that Dave Brailsford will address a general assembly of the team.

On the evening before the first stage in Corsica, he gathered the staff on the team bus. He spoke to them, photographed them and asked what they wanted to be able to say when looking back on the
photo in six months’ time. Two weeks on, he spoke in the team hotel at Orange after Chris Froome’s spectacular victory on Mont Ventoux. Now it is the evening before the ceremonial ride
into Paris. The riders and staff are gathered outside the Hotel Novel La Mamma in Annecy and Brailsford once again has the floor.

Respect from staff transcends the fact that he is boss. Through the near four weeks of the race, he has spoken easily to everyone and is perhaps the most up-beat person in the team. Any doubts
he has had about the team or about the way the support staff were doing their jobs were never expressed loosely. More importantly in terms of the ambience in the team, his authority is never used
to create fear and tension. Everyone understands that if someone is not doing their job, they won’t be with the team the following season. Gone before anyone even realised they were in
trouble. This isn’t a problem, just a fact of life in Team Sky.

Anyway, now is not the time to worry about that. The job has been done. Again. Two Tour victories in four years. Not bad for a man who said his ambition for the team was to win the race within
five. Back then the target seemed too ambitious. But here he is, making another victory speech to staff and riders. The intention had been to have this celebration before dinner but, it was pointed
out, the mechanics were still working on the bikes outside.

Rather than the mechanics leaving their station, everyone is directed outside onto Avenue de France and glasses of champagne are passed around on the pavement. While cars whizz past, it somehow
seems right that Brailsford’s second Tour de France victory speech is delivered not only among the riders, and those who care for them, but the mechanics’ labours of love as well, the
carbon-fibre steeds that have rolled all this way.

‘For you to come here as the favourite,’ he says, directing his first comments towards the champion-elect, ‘and to build yourself up from last November to the point where
you’ve come into the race as favourite, was a pretty special thing to do. But I think then to arrive as a favourite, put extra pressure on you; the way that you’ve handled that
throughout this last three weeks, has been immense, you know. And credit to you.

‘But also I think the fact that you decided to take a dive in the neutralised section of the first stage. I thought, “Fucking hell, they haven’t started racing yet” and
“
Chute! Chute! Chute!
Froome. Froome.” That was a bit of a worry.

‘And I think from there, going through Corsica, I think we obviously had G [Thomas] and Yogi [Ian Stannard], who had both crashed, which was a big worry. And G got a photograph of his
fracture, don’t know if anybody’s seen it? He’s a bit shy about it all, but if you ask him nicely he will show you!
²

‘But, you know, credit to you two obviously for battling through and I think when it came into Nice, and I think the team time trial was a brilliant performance from everybody, it really
was a fantastic performance. And for you [Thomas] to get your arse from that start ramp down to the Promenade [des Anglais].That performance set us up. It really did. A brilliant performance.

‘Onto Ax 3 Domaines, Pete [Kennaugh] your first mountain stage in a Grand Tour. You know that day, I thought as a team, was probably one of the best team performances we’ve ever had.
It was an absolutely textbook performance. The way that you took it over that Col de Pailhères, the way that Richie [Porte] then took it up, you brought Quintana back and then the way that
you took over from there, it was off the scale. That was phenomenal.

‘And then of course the next day, I think Pete decides to chuck himself down a ditch in the morning. And that pretty much changed, in many respects, I think that morning the way that, you
weren’t there, and then Richie you were there having to do that little bit more, and then Froomey finds himself isolated on his own. I think it’s the first time in eighteen months that
any team, or any rival in this race, has gone, “Actually, it’s only a little chance, but we might have a chance,” you know? And I think your performance on that day, Froomey, was
unbelievable. And Pete diving down the ditch I think changed the nature of this race for the rest of the race. Because from that day on, this race . . .’

‘He lost his Oakleys, did he tell you about that?’ chimes in G Thomas, to cackles of laughter. ‘His Oakleys, he still hasn’t got them back.’

Brailsford resumes: ‘If you hadn’t scrambled back up that ditch, quick as you did, the whole race would have gone on past without knowing you were down there, and while it would have
been a real shame for the team it would have been a bit quieter. But actually when you think about it, everybody started attacking from that point on, and where we’re thinking [five days
later], we’ve got to the crosswind section. And I think Froomey, you made the decision, to me the decision of this race, when you were caught in no-man’s-land, where Cav got the
hand-sling to get onto the group in front, instead of going you sat up and you went back to the group, and, okay, you lost a minute, but actually going back to the group and riding with the team,
and all of you lot sticking together, that was the decision of the Tour for me.

‘Because if you’d tried to go and blown there, we could have been in big trouble. And I think that day, more than anything, showed that if we stick together as a team, and yes you
manage your efforts . . . You know it wasn’t a great situation, but actually it was a brilliant decision that we made there. As you guys said, it showed what we can do when we stick together
as a team.

‘So moving on from there, I think then you got stronger and stronger and stronger. I think, David [López], you got much, much stronger through this race, and credit to you. And
where’s Kosta? Kosta, you’ve been the same, you’ve been great through the Alps. I think we were all thinking about the Alps going, “Phwoar, it’s going to be full on
here.” We came into it and actually through the Alps you’ve been the strongest team. By far. Contador, you’ve reduced him to attacking on descents. And that was because you stuck
together as a team; you know, it was an absolute privilege to watch.

‘Richie, your individual time trial, on the first individual time-trial day, to run third having had a bit of a setback on one day and then come out and shown everybody where you’re
at. To me you’re a . . . Obviously Froomey won the race, but in actual fact you’re the second best rider in this race, and everybody can see that, you know? Credit to you, anyway. And
of course then it’s all made possible by everybody, all the staff, we all know how hard they work. To all the staff, well done. Nico, thirty-four years old, youngest DS [
directeur
sportif
] ever to win the Tour de France. That takes some doing, you know.’

‘And the best looking,’ says Kennaugh.

Brailsford again, ‘And he promises next year he’s gonna speak English! But anyway, where’s Servais? Do your thing. Here we go, Froomey.’

Servais Knaven, the second
directeur sportif
, takes over.

‘READY? One . . . Two . . . All together.’

Everyone joins in: ‘OoooooOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!’

One afternoon, Dave Brailsford had tried to explain to me the particular, almost unique, contribution Rod Ellingworth made to Team Sky. He spoke of the three hands of a clock:
the hour hand, the minute hand and the second hand. Most plans are based on the second hand – what do I need to do this evening/tomorrow? Some people can also make plans for the short to
medium term, the minute hand. ‘This is where I will be six weeks from now.’ And a few work off the hour hand. ‘This is what I’m planning to do twelve months from
now.’

‘What is very difficult,’ said Brailsford, ‘is to find someone who can work off the three hands at the same time and plan for the short, medium and long term. Especially when
you’re at the Tour de France, because this race just consumes you and you’re thinking, “What do we need to do now? How long is Froomey going to have to spend at the finish today,
how long before he’s back at the team hotel?”

‘Rod can be in the middle of this race, dealing with all he has to deal with and he’s still planning for the medium and long term. Very few people can do this, especially when
they’re in the middle of something as demanding as the Tour de France.’

I thought it was a generous tribute to Ellingworth but found it hard to believe. Whose mind is not consumed by this race to the exclusion of everything else? Ellingworth’s. For, once
Brailsford had drawn attention to it, I couldn’t stop noticing how Rod’s mind worked.

On the first rest day, a week and a half into the race, I encountered him as he walked by the sea at La Baule in Brittany. ‘I’ve just been thinking about Pete [Kennaugh],’ he
said. ‘I mean he’s young, in his first Tour, he’s been brilliant for the team so far. And I’ve been looking at his programme for after the Tour. It’s too hard. We need
to change it and put him in less demanding races, because this race is going to take a lot out of him and if he’s pushed too hard after the Tour, we could do more damage than good.’

At that moment Vasil Kiryienka had already departed, G Thomas was struggling with his pelvis, López and Siutsou weren’t performing in the mountains, and with Mont Ventoux and three
tough Alpine stages remaining, young Kennaugh was needed more than should ever have been the case. But Ellingworth was able to see beyond that and plan for an easier end-of-season campaign for
him.

Another evening – at dinner people were discussing the start of the 2014 Tour which takes place over two days in Yorkshire and one in the South-East. The British public would be turning up
in their hundreds of thousands, it was said. Ellingworth saw this purely from a planning point of view: ‘It’s going to be particularly difficult for us, because many of our riders are
British and their family members will come to Yorkshire and want to meet up with the guys. That’s natural and it’s not something you would discourage.

‘But we must plan for it and I thought Team GB’s Hospitality House worked really well during the London Olympics, and that “Nearest and Dearest” suite was a clever idea,
a place where the athletes could meet their family and closest friends in private. We should really think about doing something similar in Yorkshire, close to where we’re staying, so we can
control what’s going to be a crazy situation.’

This was Ellingworth, the planner. Yet he’s more than that to this team.

This is Rod Ellingworth. Busy.

‘How’s it going?’ you say.

Rod Ellingworth always pauses and says, ‘Good, thank you.’

Then he will inquire of your wellbeing. The day he stops doing that he won’t be Rod Ellingworth. He will never become a fat cat.

Hush.

A deathly still French morning. The heat laying everything to rest.

And if you listened to Rod Ellingworth’s chest with a stethoscope, you’d catch the beat of a cycling man. Get your ear closer and you’ll hear the whirr the cranks make when
turning, the clunk of the derailleur dropping chain on cassette, the muffled fizz of rubber tyres rolling on asphalt, the telling rhythm of a rider’s breath.

I picture him sitting in a bar, sipping a coffee and shooting the breeze with two old Belgians on the morning of the Tour of Flanders. Rod is asking them about Roger De Vlaeminck and what made
him so good. Their memories and their passion are music to his ears, for no matter the size of their love for this sport, it is not greater than his.