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Relations Most Public
My dad, Bill, was a mortar bomber in the Korean War. His role was to protect infantry on the front line just 200m (656ft) up ahead. This made Billy-lad, as he’s known, a prime target. Dad doesn’t like to talk about it too much, but he has said that the order ‘Fix bayonets!!!’, as they were about to be overrun, still wakes him up at night.
‘In any battle, things can get a bit messy. What matters is how you cope…’
Things indeed got a bit messy for Team Sky not that long ago. They coped . . . rather well.
The bloodhounds of journalism have the word investigative as part of their job title. This is a role that can be useful to society, changing lives for the good. It is also an excuse for being a royal arse. The trouble with journalists – and as a commentator I am one myself – is that they need a story. They don’t do this just for fun. They need to meet deadlines and they need to feed their kids . . . or pet crocodiles. Controversy is pure currency to the investigative journalist, and so a sniff of blood is likely to get these guys attacking in packs.
As a result, it’s hard to get anything out of well-drilled teams like Sky or Team Ineos, as they are now. Their view of all journalists seems to be that you can’t offer a nibble to a hungry beast without the possibility of losing an arm. So the shop is closed.
But if Sky operates in lockdown, it’s because they would rather let their racing do the talking. And sometimes the racing does an awful lot of talking indeed. I’m not just referring to winning Grand Tours. No. Watch them. Always. They are soooo clever.
Give them an inch and they will take 49.71 miles – or 80km. They proved this during the 101st Giro d’Italia in 2018. Froome’s masterful domination when he launched his solo attack with this distance remaining on Stage 19 up to Bardonecchia was something to behold. The Sky machine working beautifully to put the hurt on the entire field and tee up Froome’s spectacular launch. This was strategy planned and delivered – but earlier in the season, away from the eyes of many fans and at a much lesser event, Sky’s relentless planning and workings were, for me, no less impressive.
In December 2017 the journalists at the French newspaper Le Monde scented blood and for the following six months Sky were on high alert, aware that the pack was ready to pounce.
According to tests carried out at La Vuelta in 2017, race winner Chris Froome had elevated levels of the permitted but restricted anti-asthma drug Salbutamol in his system. The case caused uproar, not least because Froome was adamant that he had done nothing wrong and would race on during an appeals process.
Sky backed their man, but as the furore grew with each passing month on the way to the Grand Tour season, the pressure to withdraw from racing must have been close to unbearable.
The noise of protest and disdain grew louder after Froome won the Giro d’Italia, becoming the simultaneous holder of all three Grand Tours. On the approach to the Tour de France, former winner Bernard Hinault called for riders to strike if Froome were to take the start. The furore forced the race organisers, the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), to issue a statement saying Froome would not be allowed to register to race. The following day, just five days before the start of the Tour de France, both the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and cycling’s world governing body the UCI announced that Froome had no case to answer. The test readings were deemed explainable and valid so the four-time Tour de France winner would race after all. Froome did not win the 105th edition of the Tour de France, but he helped teammate Geraint Thomas to the prize and secured a podium for himself. On the face of it, this was an amazing result for a rider competing against the fatigue of the three Grand Tour wins and the sheer pressure of the public antagonism whipped up by the Salbutamol enquiry. Of course he was attempting to win a fourth Grand Tour in a row, but his still very impressive third place and the win for his friend Geraint Thomas must have felt like a very special achievement all the same.
It had been a long process to establish Froome’s innocence. Many of us in the media got bruised along the way for refusing to condemn him before the appeal had been completed. The PR and strategy departments for Team Sky must have emerged from the bunker on that sunny Monday with battle scars aplenty but medals on their chests. This had been a long campaign and they achieved some remarkable things – but I had witnessed their effectiveness a little earlier, on a cold mid-February day in Andalucia in 2018.
The Tour of Andalucia may not be at the top of the list of great events even for dedicated cycling fans. But for Sky, the race was a vital element in the process of bringing Chris Froome back into competitive racing after two months of press speculation and vitriol, and at the same time reintroducing the public to a man who, let’s remind ourselves, was racing under appeal. How would the crowd react? With cups of urine thrown in the rider’s direction – as was the case at the Tour de France in the past? Well, just to make sure any piss-toleroes were dealt with effectively, Sky arrived with the only bodyguard in the race. He was at Froome’s side whenever he was off the bike.
Despite this, the fans in this racing-mad region of Europe were accepting and intrigued rather than hostile. There was conversation not condemnation in the cafés.
We commentators were fascinated to see how this would pan out. The primary question in our minds was: Would Team Sky
