Team Sky and the legacy of cyclings first "superteam"

In the 2010s, Team Sky was cycling’s dominant force. With their black, white and blue kits at the front of what became almost an annual parade around France, the competitiveness of the tours in 2010 and 2011 gave way to one of the most dominant team dynasties cycling has ever seen. For many cycling fans around the world, that period of cycling was much maligned. But to the British fanbase, to have three different British riders win six yellow jerseys in just seven years, it enlivened the nation and positioned the country as a primary force in cycling.

Photo from GCN+

Dan Lloyd, Nicolas Roche and Andy McGrath in the studio discussing Bradley Wiggins move to Sky in 2009

In this instalment of the GCN+ documentary series, Dan Lloyd looks back on the legacy of Team Sky as the team's dominance has given way to the likes of Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates. To help Dan parse through the spirit of marginal gains, the formulation and backdoor deals of the team formation and the controversies that have followed the team since the onset, a cast of characters who have found themselves around the Sky orbit.

While the legacy of Team Sky is still unfolding – the Ineos Grenadiers is, for all intents and purposes, the same set-up – the characters who defined the Team Sky spirit have dispersed or retired. With the hindsight that has come from a bit of separation from those days of dominance, the conversation between ex-riders like Nicolas Roche, Alex Dowsett and Joe Dombroski illuminates what it was like to be a human cog in the machine of high performance that generated so many victories.

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Geiraint Thomas and his teammates at the end of his victorious 2018 Tour tilt

Additionally, there are insights from former Team Sky coach Bobby Jullich and current number two at Ineos Rod Ellingworth that dissected what marginal gains meant and how those elements were infused into the squad and led to the development of riders like Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas. Pair those contributions with the background of the team's insurgent foundations from co-founder Fran Miller, and the viewer is left with a much fuller understanding of the Team Sky modus operandi.

Yet what is most impactful from the documentary is the candour of the officials from Sky paired with fair criticism from the journalists who were brought in to tell that story. Both Andy McGrath and William Fotheringham have been staples of cycling journalism before, during and after the decade in which Team Sky dominated and offered a counterweight to the team officials on issues of conflict of interest, doping allegations and the shortsightedness of some the PR decisions that Team Sky made during the different polemics which arose during the teams time in the intense spotlight and its relationship to British Cycling.

Check out the trailer for the new documentary Superteams: Team Sky above and be sure to subscribe to GCN+ to watch a deep archive of bespoke cycling documentaries, as well as live racing from across the calendar and around the world.