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Senior director sportif Sean Yates and team principle, Dave Brailsford.

One of the riders recalled their afternoon training ride the day before when they witnessed the goings on in nearby Sunningdale where the arrest of four men in a white van which contained a dying man took place and made the national news. Other riders talked about their early season race programmes which was one of the things to come out of a busy week for the Team Sky athletes.

The camp was certainly a big deal but the atmosphere was relaxed and as ever, there was plenty of banter as the riders enjoyed the get together. Aussie Simon Gerrans for example explained how he had flown in from Australia at the start of the week and was then off home to the other side of the world once the camp had finished. With only five days in Britain, there wasn’t time for him to worry about jet lag but to instead live with it knowing he’d be on a plane home before he’d have time to fully adjust to the different time zone.

The main reason for British Cycling being at the press conference was to attend the informal ‘round a coffee table’ press conference. Many of the journalists from the national dailies were there as were journalists from well known online cycling media points such as CyclingNews and Roadcc.

As the roar of the coffee machine behind the bar could be heard in the background, first to arrive from Team Sky was Sean Yates and with only half an hour for the media to grill them, the questions to him and Dave Brailsford a little later, came thick and fast.

The overwhelming emphasis from the media was to question Team Sky’s performance in the 2010 Tour de France and how the aim to be on the podium in 2010 did not come off in the way Team Sky had hoped for. With that in mind, Team Sky post season have done some deep soul searching and among the major topics Brailsford and Yates spoke about were their aspirations for the Tour de France next year and the setting of realistic goals for 2011.

Okay, it wasn't really Wiggins winning but rather the Londoner engaging with the fans at the end of the London stage in the Tour of Britian. Expect the Olympic champion to be doing this more in 2011 but for real this time as the team help him work towards sucess in the Tour by doing what he does best, and that's winning bike races.

After the departure of former senior director sportif,  Scott Sunderland, during the season just gone, Sean Yates admitted he is happy to take over that role. “If I’m going to be realistic, I have to take the lead” he explained. “I need to do that and I want to do that. I want to help the new guys. We have a great bunch of guys and I think the riders respect me so it is natural I have to step up or move aside.”

For Dave Brailsford, it was time to also step back and stop micro-managing the team. “It’s about me stepping back and letting the experienced guys take it on” he says. “I’m confident I can step back and let Sean and the guys get on with their jobs and know they’ll all perform.”

This more relaxed approach from the team is something they feel will benefit the riders. Gone also will be the walls around the team at events too as the team attempt to engage more with the fans. Anyone who was at the Tour of Britain will be aware of the huge interest in the team and the big crowds that would surround the team bus every day.

To aid Sky’s ambition to help inspire a million people take to their bikes in Britain, the ProTour team will be looking to engage with the fans more which can only be a really positive thing for Team Sky and it’s riders. It’s quite a contrast to 2010 where the team felt it would be benefit the riders to protect them from the distractions outside the team bus in the ‘village departs’ and create what Brailsford described as a ‘little haven’ for his athletes.

That apparently, didn’t have the desired effect and with the lesson learnt, the team intend to relax and be more engaging with the fans at races. Listening to Brailsford and Yates, the overriding impression was that 2010 was a very intense year which, says Yates, was not surprising.

“Sky is a big media company and it is normal when they do a launch like they did that it is going to be big and everyone is going to get excited. We tried desperately to live up to the expectations but you can’t go under the radar with a sponsor like Sky. We set the bar high and motivated the guys but there is only so much you can drag out of them. The energy kind of tailed off after the initial start.”

Yet another example of Sky having that winning feeling but this time it was the British Road Race Championships.
 
The monster that is the Tour de France
Whilst the team did win bike races, quite a lot of them in fact and that included a 1-2-3 in the British Road Race Championships (Men) , it was their perceived failure in the Tour de France that has got to them the most. Wiggins not climbing onto the podium at the end is seemingly what most remember when in fact, with Geraint Thomas in the White jersey early on, there was in fact quite a lot to be cheerful about. They were not exactly anonymous like a lot of teams are during the Tour but the media weren’t satisfied and nor were the team.

In cycling terms, the Tour de France can make or break a team. Riders will happily admit that  success in the Tour, be it a stage or a high placing on the overall, can make their season and their team’s season as well. But cycling for those in touch with the sport’s history and traditions, there has always been much more than the Tour de France with other races also very important for different reasons. The ‘monuments’ of the sport for example like Milan-San Remo and Paris Roubaix.

Team Sky though did go into the Tour de France shackled by the hype arising from the period prior to the team even setting a wheel on the road. “Going into the Tour, we had this big plan with Bradley and it had been the plan for the whole year and it clearly didn’t work” said Yates.

“It was possibly unrealistic. That perhaps is a bit harsh as Brad was fourth the year before but that was in a very controlled Tour.  Brad was incognito and there was no pressure from his sponsors. So it wasn’t the physical side of it that was unrealistic, it was the whole thing, the burden he was carrying that took a lot away from him.”

Brailsford then added “Bradley’s a fighter, a winner and he’s shown all those qualities winning his Olympic medals and so on. Brad was the first one to come knocking on my door following the end of the Tour to say, ‘how are we going to turn this around for next year?’”

Asked about his own time in the Tour, Brailsford told the press it was quite a humbling experience. “There is a lot of expectation you have to live with day after day and when you know that expectation isn’t going to happen, it’s a difficult place too be particularly when you are still in the middle of the event.”

As ever though, Brailsford was not dwelling on the past but looking at the positives saying “when we look back, we see the opportunities everywhere and that is something you learn from.”

Brailsford was also keen to point out that whilst for Bradley the Tour wasn’t the success they had hoped it would be, it had been the best Tour ever for many of the riders like Geraint Thomas, Thomas Lofkvist and Juan Antonio Flecha.

The perceived team’s failure in the Tour de France may have something to do with how the event is looked at by fans, the public in Britain and the media. Like many in the sport, Sean Yates agrees that the Tour has taken over the sport to a large extent.

“The way the Tour is so big, it is probably unfair to the rest of the calendar” he explained. “We realise that media wise we were obligated to perform in it but at the same time, not at the expense of forgetting all the other races on the calendar. Over the last 20 years, the Tour has become this monster in a way.”

The Tour of Britain saw the team win a stage thanks to Greg Henderson.

Looking forward and the 2011 Tour
Turning their attention to 2011, the key point Sean Yates wanted to get across was that the Tour de France was not the be all and end all of the season and that the team will have a number of goals during the year. Yates explains that the riders like Brad and the team need to get out there and enjoy the bike racing.

“Physically, Brad is able to perform at a high level in the Tour in my opinion, even when it’s hard. He has to be in the right frame of mind though. For next season, Bradley Wiggins will have more goals than just the Tour de France.”

“Brad has clear ideas, we have clear ideas. He enjoys bike racing, enjoys winning and so for 2011 he doesn’t have to train the whole year for the Tour. He has other targets but they don’t include the classics. They do include realistic targets where he can win and that will give him the morale and show him he can win like we know he can.”

Yates, a rider who knows what it is like to wear the ‘maillot jaune’ on his back, then explained just what the team’s goals are for the 2011 Tour de France. “As a team, we can target the Team Time Trial and we also have Edvald Boasson Hagen and a lot of good riders so it is not unrealistic to make our goal to get the Yellow in the first week. Without wanting to put pressure on ourselves, that is the goal”.

“There will be other teams that have the same idea like Saxobank etc but there are a couple of summit finishes that should play into our hands with a rider like Edvald for example. You have to have a goal and we can’t hide that is our goal. That should also keep Bradley in the frame.”

“Bradley certainly has the aspirations to do well and certainly wants to race three weeks and get to Paris in the best possible position whatever that maybe. Top 10 should be an attainable goal and he can also aim beyond that. That may not sound very exciting but it could be a lot better and he may end up in Paris a lot higher than tenth. I’m certainly not writing him off because we know he is a class act.”

Outside of the Tour de France, Team Sky are going to look at more ‘peaks’ in the calendar says Yates. “To cut to the chase, we’re going to go to key races with the aim to win. We have the squad and the riders, so we are capable. That will be the plan rather than turn up and have a go if we feel like it while looking ahead to the Tour. It’s now going to be about getting out there and enjoying the bike racing and performing with the goal in mind.”

Brailsford then added “It is more about the opportunities that we had last year and planning ahead to look at the opportunities for next year and how we are going to achieve them. We are very much forward looking. We have a greater depth in the team with the guys we have brought in. We have identified key races we can win so it is not all about one rider, one race as it was last year. We’re going to turn it on its head and look at key races through out the season.”

"Next season we'll have more focused teams, better race selection and the right riders for the right race".

Yates then stressed that “there are no shortcut to success. It is a learning curve for everyone. It is easy to get dragged into the doom and gloom but when you look at the whole picture, with 73 podiums, 25 wins and sixth overall on the list among the Pro-tour teams and  ranked 8th for next year, it was a very successful year. But, we keep harking back to the same subject and that is the Tour de France. In reality, there is a lot more to our year than that race.”

“Every rider wants to win and with that comes pressure. It will be about going out there and having fun. Promoting the sponsor by the riders racing their bikes and engaging with the fans. That goes hand-in-hand with success in my opinion.”

It is a philosophy that you’ll see in smaller British pro teams, that of doing their best to win races but also engaging with fans and sponsors and setting a good example for their team and the sport of cycling.

With the clock ticking and time running out for the questions, Dave Brailsford was asked about things closer to home, ie, Team GB. Like what was happening with the Academy in Italy to which the GB boss replied that some times it’s good to shake things up and the time was right for the Men’s Endurance Academy to have a few changes whereby the riders instead of being based in Italy will be more often using Belgium as a base.

Brailsford then went on to say that the talent is still coming through and an example of that was Alex Dowsett who the team have signed for 2011. “We have known Alex him for a long time” Brailsford told the press “and from a time trial point of view, he has shown himself to be very talented. He’s the European champion, a nice guy who listens and who’s got to a certain level through dedication and hard work.”

“Working with Sean and the other guys will be good for him. First, it will be time for consolidation and then we’ll move on from there”. Brailsford also made special mention of another Academy rider he rates highly, Luke Rowe. The Team Sky principle says Rowe could have gone to the team this year but they felt it was a little early for him and perhaps he’ll get an opportunity after another season with the Academy where hopefully he’ll find himself winning more international races.

The GB boss was also asked about riders like Bradley Wiggins, Geraint Thomas and Ben Swift possibly doing the Track Cycling World Cup in Manchester in February and how it will impact on Team Sky’s race programme. It will, he says, dovetail perfectly for the road season ahead for those riders especially with the training they will have to do to be race fit for the Track World Cup in Manchester (February).

It was at this point in the press conference that time was called on the press conference and Brailsford and Yates were then interviewed by Sky Italia before heading outside for their photos to be taken.

The day was just beginning for them but they know the eyes of the press are on the team and they and the fans are certainly baying for success but as they explained, no one is putting more pressure on the riders than the riders themselves. Certainly not the sponsors and no longer will they be the new kids on the block. The 2011 season is set to be a very different year for the team and success is sure to follow them where ever they go. At least that’s the goal…