Team Sky has a new training method - but they're keeping it under wraps

Team Sky have brought in a new training method from this season, head of athlete performance Tim Kerrison has revealed – but the Australian is remaining tight-lipped about what it is, but it may explain Geraint Thomas’s terrific form, with the Welsh rider leading Paris-Nice ahead of today’s final day.

News of the innovation, in part borrowed from Kerrison’s time in rowing, was broken by the Telegraph’s Jeremy Wilson, who visited the Cote d’Azur to spend time with the team and riders including Geraint Thomas and Tour de France champion Chris Froome.

He wrote that Kerrison, who had asked that what the coach termed “very new thinking” and which was used by Thomas on a training ride during the journalist’s visit not be outlined in the article.

However, Wilson added that he found it “interesting ... to notice how other leading riders from the Monaco area” – including former world champion Philippe Gilbert of BMC Racing – latch onto the Sky riders.

Kerrison said that the change to training routine, whatever it may be, would become known to other teams – transfers of riders alone sees to that – but added: “This is the best we know now but for sure there are better ways to do things.”

Without knowing what it is, it’s impossible to debate the merits or otherwise of whatever the innovation is, but it’s worth noting that Thomas’s training ride took in the Col de la Madone, where yesterday he moved into the lead at Paris-Nice following a strong team performance from Sky.

> Cummings wins at Tirreno, Thomas takes Paris-Nice lead

Kerrison, who in the past was closely involved with swimming is a key member of Team Sky's senior management, joining the British WorldTour team ahead of its 2010 debut season.

On the team's website, he describes his role as "working with the coaches to help the riders prepare for competition, and to oversee the performance support part of our operation."

"That includes the medical, physio, nutrition, sports science and recovery aspects - all the extra bits that we add to try and enhance the performance of our riders."

Given cycling's history, however, the sport continues to be beset by suspicions of doping against the strongest riders.

That's something Kerrison has witnessed at first hand, including Chris Froome being in effect accused of cheating by some elements of the French media on his way to his second Tour de France victory last year, and also having urine thrown at him by spectators and also being spat upon.

> Video: Chris Froome spat at by Tour de France spectator

Much of the attention was focused on Froome’s dominant performance in the first mountain stage to La Pierre St Martin, and Kerrison said:  “What Chris did in 2013 and 2015 was race the first mountain stage very aggressively.

 “Personally I think there is an element of risk with that strategy - you can argue it had a knock-on effect later in the race. But he had his mind set on those stages both times.

“If someone like Chris, for days leading up, is mentally preparing to smash it on that day and everyone is thinking to get through this first day … he caught everyone off guard.

“The differences in time weren’t just a reflection of the strength of riders but Chris’s determination and how deep he went that day and the team’s readiness to race and deliver on that day.”

The insistence by some that Froome must be doping led to Team Sky releasing his power data for that stage and late last year the rider himself underwent performance tests, the results of which were revealed in an article written by Richard Moore for Esquire magazine.

> Brailsford: Teams should publish rider performance data

“Chris didn’t know what it would achieve,” reflected Kerrison. “I think it did help. We want to be open and transparent and have given away some competitive information.”

He maintained it was a “false belief” that cyclists riding strongly must be using drugs, and said:  “If you take the best of the worst era, the current riders are not there.

“But I am sure that clean riders will eventually surpass times from that era and I would be proud to be part of that.

“Our objective is to produce clean performances that are incredible and we are not going to stop trying.

“I think people out there putting limits on human performance are probably not the great visionary thinkers. One thing I am very sure of is that we are not yet close to reaching those limits.” 

He went on: “In the doping era of cycling we didn’t necessarily see what the most talented riders were capable of in a well supported environment. The focus of supporting and developing riders was through doping. I expect performances in the post-doping era to progress faster than some might

Kerrison also spoke about the issue of mechanical doping which hit the headlines at the end of January after a hidden motor was discovered in a bike prepared for Belgian under-23 rider Femke Van den Driessche at the Cyclo-cross World Championships.

UCI president Brian Cookson has said that a hearing should take place this month and the governing body is calling for a very severe sanction in what is the first case of its kind and one that is a strict liability offence.

“It's just outrageous,” insisted Kerrison. “But if you are mechanically doping, the evidence doesn’t disappear, doesn’t get flushed away, it’s there on the bike.

“In any capitalist culture there will be some people prepared to cheat, whatever the industry. I don’t get how anybody can get any intrinsic reward.

“Obviously some people are not intrinsically driven – they get a nice contract and lifestyle if they win some bike races – and how they achieve that they are not too bothered I guess.

“To me that is a foreign concept to come to terms with,” he added.