The Team Behind The Team - 'elite People' Supporting Elite Athletes

There is small that illustrates nan constituent amended than roadworthy cycling erstwhile it comes to nan value of nan squad down nan squad successful top-level sport.

A short, steep elevation successful agrarian bluish France is flanked by hundreds of group awaiting nan marauding Tour de France peloton, each opinionated successful among beautiful flowers from nan adjacent meadow.

Dotted wrong fans holding beers and babies are Ineos Grenadiers' 'soigneurs' - nan important squad support personnel.

They are carrying bags, criss-crossed to either side, afloat of bottles, pinch much successful their hands arsenic they equilibrium precariously holding either a h2o aliases electrolyte portion retired for nan riders, pinch power gels strapped to nan broadside of each pinch an elastic set for illustration a inexpensive fairground prize.

To nan riders it is salvation arsenic they conflict done nan oppressive heat, which has returned to nan bluish Hauts-de-France region aft an epic greeting downpour, connected their measurement to a blistering uphill coastal decorativeness successful Boulogne-sur-Mer.

For nan staff, location is much than sustenance to contend with, arsenic they present nan equipment wrong a peloton which passes successful seconds, squad cars' horns blaring from nan chasing sporting board arsenic they miss prams and elbows by inches.

It is simply a hot, happy mayhem - and a cleanable measurement to exemplify what lies down winning teams crossed elite athletics arsenic portion of BBC Sounds' podcast bid The Team Behind nan Team, successful relation pinch nan Open University.

Soigneurs do a lot, including changing each furniture expanse and pillow successful each edifice to nan riders' preferred type.

But backmost astatine nan edifice connected nan outskirts of nan beautiful French metropolis of Valenciennes, a scope of unit and vehicles are sounded up successful nan car park, pinch chefs, mechanics and much fresh to work each need.

It is besides wherever you will find nan team's activity - nan only quality being location will beryllium a laptop aliases aggregate smartphones successful their hands alternatively of a spanner aliases spatula.

So what makes a bully leader? Winning. It is arsenic elemental arsenic that.

"We person a squad of athletics board and they typically tally and navigate each of nan races," says Ineos capacity head Scott Drawer.

"We person a science, medicine, exertion engineering team, and besides arsenic portion of nan capacity teams are our riders. So I oversee each of that.

"The conversations you person ever commencement from nan end, if that makes sense. Performance ever starts astatine nan end. And really does that play itself retired successful nan measurement we train and prepare? So there's a model and building by which you request to understand nan performance."

Team CEO John Allert is besides connected nan crushed successful France - overseeing a play successful which Ineos person not won a three-week Grand Tour successful 4 years. Yet expectations for nan team's return to nan apical of nan athletics are high, aft winning 7 Tours de France successful 10 years betwixt 2010 and 2019, galore arsenic Team Sky.

"Like each elite sports, it's a pyramid and everybody is trying to get to nan top. And that creates pressure," Allert says.

"And of course, you know, sport, for illustration business, for illustration astir organisations, is chiefly people. And nan warfare for talent isn't conscionable astatine nan jock level. We request elite group to train nan elite athletes to deliver, hopefully, elite results."

There are group and location is leadership, but numbers are becoming ever much influential successful assessing performances and deciding who genuinely is nan champion of nan best.

Speed, distances, bosom rate, VO2 max aerobic capacity tests, biomechanics, wounded risk, sleep, mood, stress, positions, power maps, formations - it is excessively overmuch for astir of america to contemplate.

"Football is nan hardest sport. You know, fundamentally, it's difficult to analyse because location are not galore goals," says Ian Graham, laminitis and CEO of analytics institution Ludonautics.

"I was head of investigation astatine Liverpool Football Club for 11 years. In nan Premier League, surely each move is analysed.

"For each game, you get this data, which is this database of what happened, wherever and who did it. Most leagues now person thing called search data, wherever you spot 25 frames per second, nan positions of each of nan players. That tells you thing astir nan off-ball impacts of players."

It does not travel cheap, though. Graham says it will costs thing from £1.5m to £3.5m for clubs specified arsenic Liverpool, Arsenal, Brighton and Brentford, who are known to beryllium invested successful nan numbers.

Then again, successful shot astatine least, that is simply a bargain if you are paying £100m for a player.

Data will show anybody pinch knowledge of really to usage it an atrocious lot, but tin athletes understand it themselves?

Certainly - conscionable inquire English golfer Lottie Woad, who precocious won nan Scottish Open aged 21, a week aft turning master successful a athletics which demands accuracy.

"I emotion data, truthful that's benignant of really my encephalon works," Woad says.

"I grounds stats from each information and put them successful a strategy called Upgame - it'll show you everything astir your round, strokes gained and worldly for illustration that.

"And past successful my believe utilizing motorboat monitors, showing you each nan worldly you request for your method arsenic good arsenic looking astatine shot flight, rotation rates, worldly for illustration that. It's helped a lot."

Incremental betterment is nan sanction of nan game, but there's a much blase arena connected nan sky which could alteration elite athletics everlastingly and needs a scientist, not a sports star, to explain.

"Artificial intelligence is simply a shape of machine science. So it uses systems that tin execute tasks which reflector quality intelligence, specified arsenic nan likes of problem-solving, decision-making and learning," says nan Open University's Mark Antrobus.

"The existent benefits of it is it tin beryllium utilized to cod and streamline information and information postulation processes really quickly. We tin place patterns, and make predictions conscionable for illustration humans do done experience."

We request humans successful elite sport, different it is clip to watch nan Robot Olympics and hide everything else.

But conscionable really overmuch jock autonomy is near successful nan modern era? There is nary purer spot than nan athletics way to get a consciousness for that.

"The information doesn't lie," says Darren Campbell, golden medallist for Great Britain astatine nan 2004 Athens Olympic Games successful nan 4x100m relay. "But I would opportunity attitude, subject and relay skills are important ingredients for success.

"Raw velocity pinch nary manus skills - we're not going to get nan baton round. You cognize you can't conscionable person earthy speed."

Fellow Briton Laviai Nielsen won Olympic bronze astatine Paris 2024 successful nan women's 4x400m relay.

"The training camps are truthful important - we analyse everything and thing that could happen," she says.

"We do rehearse a batch of what happens if you get shoved, what happens if you drawback nan baton and move astir and someone's correct successful beforehand of you."

Back successful France, arsenic nan greeting summertime sun warms nan edifice swimming excavation and its assortment of mildly drifting inflatables, Ineos' 2018 Tour de France victor and squad patron Geraint Thomas thinks astir his ain autonomy connected nan motorcycle earlier he retires astatine nan extremity of this year.

"The racing has moved on, and you conscionable benignant of person to adapt. [The riders] decidedly person an input," says nan Welshman.

"I for illustration nan thought of cycling being an creation much than a science. It still needs nan quality constituent for sure. Just support those paintbrushes by your side, mate. That's what I say."