Team Sky: Cycling behemoth will leave behind conflicted image of success tinged by “damaging scepticism”
It’s no wonder some see Team Sky as cycling’s bad guys. Their bus is nicknamed the “Death Star”, their employees wear black and they have conquered all in their path through heavy investment.
The shock announcement that their media giant benefactor will pull the plug on its sponsorship at the end of the 2019 season will therefore not spark a widespread period of mourning. After all, the potential toppling of a dominant force brings with it fresh opportunities for others.
Team Sky have been wildly successful since their launch in January 2010, claiming 322 wins – a figure which includes eight Grand Tour titles, 52 other stage races and 25 one-day races.
Alongside British Cycling they’ve propelled Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas into the spotlight, ushering in a period of utter dominance in the process.
Before their existence no British rider had ever won the Tour de France and no Brit had ever won both the Vuelta a Espana and Giro d’Italia. But funded by Sky to the tune of a sum approaching £200m, backed by its former chairman and cycling fan James Murdoch and fronted by team principal Sir Dave Brailsford they have achieved all they set out to and more.
Not finished yet
Under Brailsford’s much-trumpeted banner of cutting-edge sports science and marginal gains Sky have left rivals in their wake.
Having spent 2018 basking in the glory of Thomas’s maiden Tour de France title and Froome’s Giro success, now might seem a strange time to cease funding. But with Murdoch – and his advocacy – having left Sky’s board following the £30bn sale of the company to Comcast in October, the cycling arm of the company was on shaky ground.
Only six team sponsors have lasted longer than Sky in the history of the World Tour, but the end was abrupt and unexpected. Brailsford, as always, was looking to the future, signing Colombian rider Egan Bernal to a five-year contract just two months ago.
In a statement he said the team “aren’t finished yet by any means” and are “open minded about the future and the potential of working with a new partner”. Star rider Froome echoed his sentiment saying: “We plan to be together in 2020 if at all possible.”
Even if they are reformed, rebadged and rebranded, in 12 months’ time Team Sky will be no more.
The man who made the decision, Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch, called it “the right time for us to move on as we open a new chapter in Sky’s story and turn our focus to different initiatives including our Sky Ocean Rescue campaign.”
Elephant in the room
Darroch made no mention of it, but there was an elephant looming large inside the room.
Team Sky may have taken home every trophy they coveted, but the success has come at a price – one which ultimately appears to have helped hasten their demise.
Negative stories in the press and abuse on the roads have been all-consuming over the past few years, casting a cloud over the victories and dragging Sky’s name through the dirt.
Failed drugs tests. A damning parliamentary report stating they “crossed an ethical line”. Questionable employment of Therapeutic Use Exemptions. Inadequate medical record-keeping. Inconsistent explanations.
There’s no doubt Team Sky suffered damage to their reputation. Wiggins – the team’s groundbreaker and original poster boy – has become almost as well known for his use of powerful corticosteroid triamcinolone and the jiffy bag controversy as his achievements in the saddle.
Damaging scepticism
His frequent protesting against his tarnished image, like his memorable line “I’d have had more rights as a murderer” last month, have arguably had the opposite effect to the one he presumably desires.
Four-time Tour de France winner Froome, meanwhile, was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing following an adverse analytical finding for asthma drug salbutamol, yet he still suffered due to the snowball effect of what came before.
At the centre of it all has been Brailsford, the man who built the team from the ground up and has been forced to defend it ever since, having transformed from miracle worker and affable PR man to embattled and spiky figurehead.
As parliament’s digital, culture, media and sport select committee put it in March, it is he who should shoulder responsibility for the “damaging scepticism about the legitimacy of his team’s performance and accomplishments.”
The eroding of the team’s image – from shiny, high-tech, Union Jack-waving success story to divisive, defensive, question-ridden behemoth – is such that even Thomas’s Tour victory in July was tinged in some quarters with doubt.
“In a bigger picture, I don’t see the negatives, I just see the positives,” Brailsford said about Sky’s withdrawal. “I just look forward to getting out there this season and carrying on racing.”
Unfortunately for Brailsford, outsiders are bound to see the negatives as well as the positives when assessing Team Sky’s legacy.