Dave Brailsford#'Marginal gains' philosophy

{{Infobox cyclist

| honorific_prefix = Sir

| name = David Brailsford

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE}}

| image = David Brailsford.jpg

| caption = Brailsford in 2007

| fullname = David John Brailsford

| nickname =

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1964|2|29}}

| birth_place = Shardlow, Derbyshire, England

| height =

| weight =

| currentteam = {{UCI team code|SKY}}

| discipline = Road and track cycling

| role = General manager

| manageyears1 = 1997–2014

| manageteam1 = British Cycling

| manageyears2 = 2010–

| manageteam2 = {{UCI team code|SKY|2010}}

}}

Sir David John Brailsford {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE}} (born 29 February 1964){{cite news|last=Shuttleworth|first=Peter|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/cycling/7533548.stm|title=Cycling's Taff at the top|work=BBC Sport|date=17 August 2008|access-date=5 September 2021}} is a British sports director and former cycling coach. He is currently team principal of UCI WorldTeam {{UCI team code|IGD}}, and was performance director of British Cycling from 1997 to 2014.{{cite web|url=https://www.uci.org/road/teams/TeamDetail/15241/1001552/279|title=Ineos Grenadiers|work=UCI.org|publisher=Union Cycliste Internationale|access-date=2 January 2021|archive-url=https://archive.today/20210102023102/https://www.uci.org/road/teams/TeamDetail/15241/1001552/279|archive-date=2 January 2021}} He is also currently working with French football club Nice and English football club Manchester United as part of his role as Director of Sport at Ineos.{{Cite web |title=Sir Dave Brailsford is appointed Director of Sport |url=https://www.ogcnice.com/en/article/120055/sir-dave-brailsford-is-appointed-director-of-sport.html |access-date=2023-05-25 |website=OGC Nice |language=en}}{{Cite web |author1=Chris Marshall-Bell |date=2022-10-12 |title=Dave Brailsford is living in a caravan in Nice as he tries to rescue his football experiment |url=https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/dave-brailsfords-living-in-a-caravan-in-nice-as-he-tries-to-rescue-his-floundering-football-experiment |access-date=2023-05-25 |website=cyclingweekly.com |language=en}}

Early life

Brailsford was born in Shardlow, Derbyshire, and moved as a toddler with his parents and siblings to Deiniolen, near Caernarfon in Wales:

{{Cquote

| quote = We were one of the few English families in that area of north Wales – we'd moved there from Derby when I was two – and somehow I always felt I didn't quite fit in. So I always thought I must try harder than the others to be accepted, to be successful.{{cite news|last=Chadband|first=Ian|title=Sir Dave Brailsford and the story behind his amazing ride from Bangor to Buck House|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/9970022/Sir-Dave-Brailsford-and-the-story-behind-his-amazing-ride-from-Bangor-to-Buck-House.html|work=The Telegraph|date=4 April 2013|access-date=19 November 2019}}

}}

He attended Ysgol Deiniolen and Ysgol Brynrefail, and learned Welsh.{{cite news| url=https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/local-news/penisarwaun-mums-pride-brailsford-wins-2802417|title=Penisarwaun mum's pride as Brailsford wins Sports Personality of the Year award|date=18 December 2008|work=North Wales Live|access-date=14 November 2019}}{{cite news|last=Wynn|first=Nigel|url=https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/sir-dave-brailsford-appears-in-welsh-language-tv-soap-opera-208584

|title=Sir Dave Brailsford appears in Welsh language TV soap opera|work=Cycling Weekly|date=25 January 2016|access-date=14 November 2019}} In 1984 he gave up his job as an apprentice draughtsman with the local highways department to travel to France, where he raced for four years as a sponsored amateur for a team based in Saint-Étienne. He has described his years in France as a time of learning:

{{Cquote

| quote = I'd always hated school but now I had so much time on my hands and didn't go out much in the evenings, I became an avid reader. Training manuals, books about physiology, sports psychology. I became fluent in French too.

}}

He returned in 1988 to study for a degree in Sport and Exercise Sciences and Psychology at Chester College of Higher Education and then an MBA at Sheffield Hallam University.{{cite news|url=https://www.skysports.com/cycling/news/12040/9259620/sky-sports-looks-at-sir-dave-brailsford-life-and-career|title=Sky Sports looks at Sir Dave Brailsford life and career|work=Sky Sports|date=30 April 2014|access-date=18 November 2019}}{{cite news|url=https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/sport/other-sport/cycling-chester-graduate-brailsford-honoured-5227986|title=Cycling: Chester graduate Brailsford honoured for GB Olympic cycling achievements|work=Cheshire Live|date=16 January 2009|access-date=14 November 2019}}{{cite web|url=https://www4.shu.ac.uk/mediacentre/gb-cycling-chief-track-honorary-degree?filter=Olympics|title=GB Cycling chief on track for honorary degree|publisher=Sheffield Hallam University|date=18 December 2009|access-date=14 November 2019}}

Career

=Early career=

Brailsford spent some of his early career working as an export sales manager at Planet X Bikes.{{cite web|last=Richards|first=Brant|url=http://www.planetx.co.uk/news/planet-x-news/q/date/2013/03/01/brailsford-for-the-chop|title=Brailsford for the Chop|publisher=Planet X|date=1 March 2013|access-date=14 November 2019}} He was first employed by British Cycling as a consultant in 1998, after Lottery funding began the previous year.{{cite news|last=Fortheringham|first=William|url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/feb/26/cycling-tour-de-france-mark-cavendish|title=Sky to sponsor British Tour de France team|work=The Guardian|date=26 February 2009|access-date=14 November 2019}} Brailsford became programmes director before becoming performance director in 2003 following the departure of Peter Keen.

='Marginal gains' philosophy=

At British Cycling, Brailsford was noted for the concept of 'marginal gains':

{{Cquote

| quote = The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.{{cite news|last=Slater|first=Matt|title=Olympics cycling: Marginal gains underpin Team GB dominance|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19174302|work=BBC Sport|access-date=11 April 2014|date=8 August 2012}}

}}

Brailsford's approach involved the constant measuring and monitoring of key statistics such as cyclists' power output, and training interventions targeting specific weaknesses, for example the relative weakness of Bradley Wiggins in mountain racing.{{cite news|last=Slater|first=Matt|title=How Dave Brailsford and Team Sky stormed cycling|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/21331484|work=BBC Sport|date=5 February 2013|access-date=11 April 2014}} As well as looking at traditional components of success such as physical fitness and tactics, it also entailed a more holistic strategy, embracing technological developments, athlete psychology, and everyday life:

{{Cquote

| quote = Do you really know how to clean your hands? Without leaving the bits between your fingers? If you do things like that properly, you will get ill a little bit less. They're tiny things but if you clump them together it makes a big difference.

}}

Peaking in the mid-2010s at the height of Brailsford's reputation, 'marginal gains' philosophy

was discussed beyond cycling in the UK mainstream media.{{cite news|last=Syed|first=Matthew|title=Viewpoint: Should we all be looking for marginal gains?|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34247629|work=BBC News|date=15 September 2015|access-date=13 November 2019}} Brailsford's '1% Factor' was also discussed in business circles in the UK and internationally.{{cite news|last=Harrell|first=Eben|url=https://hbr.org/2015/10/how-1-performance-improvements-led-to-olympic-gold|title=How 1% performance improvements led to Olympic gold|work=Harvard Business Review|date=30 October 2015|access-date=19 November 2019}}{{cite web|last=London Business Forum|title=Sir Dave Brailsford – The 1% Factor|publisher=YouTube|date=1 December 2016|access-date=20 November 2019|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQxYlu12ji8 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/NQxYlu12ji8| archive-date=2021-12-12 |url-status=live}}{{cbignore}} In UK education policy, the Social Mobility Commission argued in 2014 that improvements in the academic performance of disadvantaged students in British schools could be compared to "the success of [the] British cycling team: the aggregation of marginal gains".{{cite journal|last=Maslen|first=Joseph|title=Cracking the Code: The Social Mobility Commission and Education Policy Discourse|journal=Journal of Education Policy|volume=34|issue=5|year=2019|pages=599–612|doi=10.1080/02680939.2018.1449891|s2cid=149726651|url=https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/2418/1/Maslen%202018a.doc|access-date=22 September 2020|archive-date=12 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210712144939/https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/2418/1/Maslen%202018a.doc|url-status=dead|url-access=subscription}}{{Cite web|url=https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/2418|title=Accepted manuscript|publisher=Institutional open access repository|access-date=21 October 2019|archive-date=12 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210712144912/https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/2418/|url-status=dead}} Writing on the 2016 EU referendum, the political commentator Tim Shipman cited "the philosophy of the Team Sky cycling team" in making the argument that "tiny improvements" made by the Remain campaign could have changed the referendum's result.{{cite book|last=Shipman|first=Tim|date=2017|title=All Out War: The Full Story of Brexit|edition=revised and updated|location=London|publisher=William Collins|page=592|isbn=978-0-008-21517-0}}

Latterly, the philosophy has been criticised and ridiculed, including by Wiggins.{{cite news|last=Lewis|first=Tim|url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/oct/20/marginal-gains-tarnished-bradley-wiggins-dave-brailsford|title=Golden aura around marginal gains is beginning to look a little tarnished|work=The Guardian|date=20 October 2019|access-date=14 November 2019}}{{cite news|last=Cary|first=Tom|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cycling/2017/03/26/sir-bradley-wiggins-says-marginal-gains-load-rubbish-calls-victoria/|title=Sir Bradley Wiggins says marginal gains is 'load of rubbish' and calls Victoria Pendleton 'bit of a milkshake'|work=The Telegraph|date=26 March 2017|access-date=19 November 2019}}

=Great Britain cycling team=

At the 2004 Olympic Games Great Britain won two cycling gold medals, their best performance since 1908.{{cite news|last=Slater|first=Matt|title=How GB cycling went from tragic to magic|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/cycling/7534073.stm|work=BBC Sport|access-date=11 April 2014|date=14 August 2008}} Under Brailsford's leadership, the cycling team continued to improve, winning multiple world championships in road, track, BMX and mountain bike racing. Great Britain led the cycling medal table at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games, winning eight golds at both, while British cyclists won 59 World Championships across different disciplines from 2003 to 2013.{{cite web|title=GB Cycling Team medal history: Medals won by the Great Britain Cycling Team at world championships, Olympic Games and Paralympic Games since 2000|url=http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/gbcyclingteam/article/Gbrst_gb-cyclingteam-GB-Cycling-Team-Medal-History--0|publisher=British Cycling|access-date=11 April 2014}}

In reference to the success, Brailsford noted: "The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together."{{Cite news |date=2015-09-14 |title=Viewpoint: Should we all be looking for marginal gains? |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34247629 |access-date=2023-01-09}}

=Team Sky/Team Ineos=

In 2010, Brailsford also became the manager of the new British-based professional team, {{UCI team code|IGD|2010}}.{{cite news|last=Fortheringham|first=William|url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/apr/10/sir-dave-brailsford-team-sky-leave-british-cycling|title=Sir Dave Brailsford quits performance director job at British Cycling|work=The Guardian|date=10 April 2014|access-date=15 November 2019}} In this role he oversaw Bradley Wiggins', Chris Froome's and Geraint Thomas' victories in the 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 Tour de France.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/18946960|title=Bradley Wiggins wins 2012 Tour de France|date=22 July 2012|work=BBC Sport|access-date=15 November 2019}}{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23399906|title=Tour de France: Chris Froome wins 100th edition of race|date=21 July 2013|work=BBC News|access-date=15 November 2019}} In April 2014, Brailsford resigned as performance director at British Cycling to concentrate on his Team Sky responsibilities.

Team Sky became Team Ineos in May 2019, due to a change of sponsor. Brailsford remained as team principal after the changeover.{{cite news |title=Team Sky become Team Ineos as new sponsor owned by Sir Jim Ratcliffe is confirmed |work=BBC Sport |date=19 March 2019 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/47629760 |access-date=3 January 2020}}

In December 2021, Brailsford was appointed Director of Sport at Ineos, overseeing a growing range of teams and disciplines sponsored by the group, including French football club Nice . His role as Team Principal at INEOS Grenadiers cycling team continued unaffected.{{Cite web|last=Grenadiers|first=The Ineos|title=Sir Dave Brailsford appointed Director of Sport at INEOS|url=https://www.ineosgrenadiers.com/article/sir-dave-brailsford-appointed-director-of-ineos-sport|access-date=2021-12-17|website=www.ineosgrenadiers.com|language=en}}

=Doping controversy=

In March 2018 the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee published the report Combatting Doping in Sport. Chapter 2 of the report, "British Cycling and Team Sky", focused on Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs) gained by both organisations for the use of drugs on the WADA Prohibited List, citing the defence used by Wiggins and Shane Sutton that TUEs were used to "find gains" and put oneself "back on a level playing field" with rivals. The report alleged in particular that the drug triamcinolone had been "used to prepare" Wiggins "and possibly other riders supporting him" for the 2012 Tour de France, "not to treat medical need, but to improve his power to weight ratio ahead of the race". It concluded that Team Sky had crossed an "ethical line" by exploiting this loophole "to enhance the performance of riders".{{cite report|author=House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee|date=2 March 2018|title=Combatting Doping in Sport|chapter-url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/366/36606.htm|publisher=House of Commons|location=London|chapter=2. British Cycling and Team Sky §74, 109–110|access-date=14 November 2019}}

Following the publication of the report, Brailsford was defended by Chris Froome.{{cite news|last=Skelton|first=Jack|title=Chris Froome 'completely backs' Team Sky boss Sir Dave Brailsford after doping report|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/43342938|work=BBC Sport|date=9 March 2018|access-date=14 November 2019}}

Honours

In June 2005, December 2008 and December 2012, respectively, Brailsford was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and a Knight Bachelor, the latter for services to cycling and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.{{cite web|title=MBE For Dave Brailsford|publisher=British Cycling|date=15 June 2005|url=http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/site/BC/gbr/News2005/20050615_mbe_brailsford.asp|url-status=dead|access-date=23 November 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080306101328/http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/site/BC/gbr/News2005/20050615_mbe_brailsford.asp|archive-date=6 March 2008}}{{cite news|last=Baker|first=Andrew|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/sport-review-of-the-year/4031440/Golden-generation-gain-their-just-rewards.html|work=The Telegraph|title=Golden generation gain their just rewards

|date=31 December 2008|access-date=19 November 2019}}{{cite news|last=Richardson|first=Simon|url=https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/dave-brailsford-receives-knighthood-from-the-queen-33372|work=Cycling Weekly|title=Dave Brailsford receives knighthood from the Queen|date=28 February 2013|access-date=19 November 2019}}

In December 2008 the 14 medals, including eight golds, achieved by British Cycling at the Olympics won him the BBC Sports Personality of the Year's Coach Award.{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tv_and_radio/sports_personality_of_the_year/7771920.stm|work=BBC Sport|title=Sports Personality 2008|date=14 December 2008|access-date=16 December 2008}}
In November 2008 and December 2009, respectively, he was awarded honorary doctorates by his alma maters the University of Chester and Sheffield Hallam University.
In December 2012 he won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Coach Award for a second time.{{cite news|title=Sports Personality: Cycling's Dave Brailsford is coach of the year|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/sports-personality/20692840|work=BBC Sport|access-date=16 December 2012|date=16 December 2012}}
As a resident of Ilkeston, he also in December 2012 received the Freedom of the Borough of Erewash, Derbyshire.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-20770146|title=Cycle coach Dave Brailsford receives freedom of Erewash|work=BBC News|date=19 December 2012|access-date=14 November 2019}}
In October 2016 he was inducted into the British Cycling Hall of Fame.{{cite web|url=https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/about/article/20161028-about-bc-news-British-Cycling-Hall-of-Fame--Seven-new-inductions-at-International-Gala-Dinner-0#BABiqh32tlVwOCLT.99|title=British Cycling Hall of Fame: Seven new inductions at international gala dinner|publisher=British Cycling|date=28 October 2016|access-date=14 November 2019}}
The sports centre at Bangor University, Canolfan Brailsford, is named in his honour.{{cite web |title=Sir Dave Brailsford opens Sports Centre named in his honour |url=https://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/archive/sir-dave-brailsford-opens-sports-centre-named-in-his-honour-20841 |website=Bangor University |access-date=17 October 2022}}