Sir Dave Brailsford is presiding over a crumbling empire ...Middle East

Team Sky was once the toast of British sport.

With Sir Dave Brailsford and his “marginal gains” magic driving British cyclists to heights thought impossible for those from these shores winning 16 Olympic gold medals in two Games, and then six of seven Tour de France titles through Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas.

Wiggins is now a podcaster, Froome is 40 and still racing but barely, and Thomas has just ridden his last Tour.

Team Sky, now rebadged as Ineos Grenadiers, finished sixth in team standings and their best rider Thymen Arensman was 12th overall.

Where did it all go wrong?

Adam Blythe was a member of the British Cycling academy programme and rode against Team Sky during their peak years as a professional racer on the road from 2010 to 2019.

“They were ahead of the curve,” he tells The i Paper.

“They had better coaches, all the staff, the nutrition. They had a deeper understanding of how to get the best out of each person and their attributes.

“They dominated a race in a way that suited them and didn’t just stick to the traditional ‘This is how bike racing is.’ It really changed the way that cycling was after that.”

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Brailsford’s philosophy, based on the idea that even minute changes to seemingly insignificant parts of the team could make a tangible difference to performance, gave Team Sky an advantage over the field – but it wasn’t all they had.

He had also been big part of the deal to form the team, backed by Britain’s biggest sports broadcaster, and secured massive funding to do so.

As well as paying himself a healthy salary – he reportedly insisted that no rider should be paid more than him, a system that earned him as much as £4m a year – Sky were able to bring in the best riders at will, and then pay for the best staff and equipment to support them.

“Up until about 2016, everyone wanted to ride for Sky,” Blythe added.

“You got paid a fortune. You had the best equipment, you had the best coaches, the best staff. So as a rider, you’re like, ‘I’m going to get better as a bike rider, I’m going to get paid handsomely, and I’m going to progress in a team where it’s super cool.’

“Everyone wanted to be a part of that.”

Brailsford is ‘no expert’ in cycling

Brailsford was a key part of that factory line from British Cycling to Team Sky, leaving the former to work on the professional cycling tour full-time in 2014.

It was he who talent-spotted Froome at the 2006 Commonwealth Games; who poached Wiggins in 2009 after he became the first Brit to achieve a podium at the Tour de France; who ensured Thomas spent virtually his whole pro career at the same team.

“Dave is just someone that’s good at surrounding himself with good people,” says Brian Smith, himself a former rider in the 1990s but then a general manager across three different pro teams during Team Sky’s heydays. He now works as a commentator and pundit.

“He’s not the expert in cycling. Never was, and never will be. It was always the people round about him.

“Luckily he got Wiggins and Froome coming along, and they were the best at what they did. Then it was just a case of they had the money, so just buying all the other personnel that goes with it, simple as that. Then there comes a time where you have to be thinking of the future and who to bring in.”

The next Tour de France winner

Recruitment, in cycling as in any team sport, is a multi-disciplinary exercise that combines analysis, knowledge, networking, personality and a little bit of luck. For every “we got him story”, there are three that “we didn’t”.

“I used to give Brailsford a few tips of riders, and one of them was Primoz Roglic, and he never went for it,” Smith adds.

“Okay, Primoz never won the Tour, but he maybe should have in the first year that [now four-time winner Tadej] Pogacar won. But you’re always having to look at that talent spotting, and that’s what they were dreadful at.

“All Team Sky did was buy the good riders, and not look at the talent. They’ve never had a proper development team and have never looked at that.

“Every team has to be able to recruit, if they’re looking to win the Tour. Where’s the next Tour de France winner? Where are you going to find them? There’s a lot of small races, and you have to communicate with a lot of people at these races and watch these races and see how these young lads are doing.”

"Great for him and great for the team"Daniel got reaction from Geraint Thomas after his teammate, Thymen Arensman, won Ineos' first Tour stage for two years #TDF2025 pic.twitter.com/c2V5ZdbWzO

Without dismissing the strength of the personnel, Blythe agrees.

“The one thing that Ineos are missing is recruiting riders early and getting the younger talent in,” he says.

“In the past they they did have a lot of money. They had one of the biggest budgets, if not the biggest budget in cycling, where they could just throw money at riders and get the best team possible.

“But teams and riders caught up, and more teams then started to get a lot more money than they did.

“Ineos and Sky were still very much ‘We can still do this with the riders that we’ve got’ and it came to the point where the other riders are, but it started to become very apparent that they were clearly better.”

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The duopoly of Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard is hard for anyone to break in France, the pair having split the last six Tours.

Even the return of “not so secret weapon” Brailsford from his 18-month stint trying to fix Manchester United.

But is it actually that there needs to be a recalibration of expectations for teams like Ineos?

“If you look at the Tour de France, for example, Arensman won two stages still. So it’s a huge success for any team,” Blythe adds

“I think we’re guilty of saying, ‘Well, they’re not as successful as used to be, but only because they’re not winning Grand Tours anymore’.”

When you are used to winning, second place feels pretty bad.

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