David Brailsford, the manager of Team Sky reflects on winning the Tour de France with Chris Froome and the importance of utilising setbacks for improvement.
Victory
Froome completed his second Tour win, and Team Sky’s third in four years, on Sunday, as he finished 1 min, 12 secs ahead of Nairo Quintana following the 21-stage long race.
Focused
There was little outward celebration from Brailsford to Froome’s success, as he said the immediate goal is now winning the 2016 race.
“I would like to think it’s business as usual. We’ve won a bike race and we’ll go and keep on winning them as much as we can,” the Englishman said.
Doing it again
Brailsford said winning the race was inevitably not as emotive as the first time they had won it in 2012 with Bradley Wiggins.
“When you’re up there and you do it for the second time I’m not sure it has the same level of impact maybe as you did first time round.
“We’ve just won the Tour de France. It’s great, but it doesn’t do it for me. I don’t have a firework that goes off inside me like other people do. I wish I did, but I don’t.”
That losing feeling
Team Sky were, according to Brailsford, driven on this year by the memory of last year’s Tour when Froome was ruled out after suffering a broken hand and fractured wrist in a crash early in the race.
“I was pretty upset last year,” he said. “When I don’t win, like last year, it was horrific. I wasn’t in a very good place.
“I get embarrassed by it, humiliated. It’s a horrible experience and I’ll do anything I can to get out of that.”
Bouncing back
The disappointment of 2014 was vital to the success of 2015 in Brailsford’s mind.
“Great victories only come through massive defeats,” he said.
“You’ve got to go through those horrific moments if you really want to get to big, big results. If you just want the middle ground, do all right, it’s all OK – that’s not what we want.”
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