[📷: James Huntly Photography]
Master aerodynamicist and key cog in Team GB’s track cycling team Dan Bigham has revealed he will leave his performance engineer role at Ineos Grenadiers after the Games, saying the team “lacked clarity” and “should be doing things a lot better”.
Bigham — who worked with the Danish track cycling team at the last Olympics having felt the British Track Cycling Team were dismissive of his ideas, but is competing at this Games for GB — told the Telegraph that Ineos Grenadiers have “lacked clarity” since Sir Dave Brailsford’s departure and expressed “frustrations” at missed performance gains.
“How I want to do performance is not particularly aligned with how Ineos wanted to go about it. I wanted more autonomy, more ability to action my ideas. And I wasn’t really getting that at Ineos,” he explained, confirming there were similarities with his situation with GB a few years ago.
“I feel that a lot of performance we’re leaving on the table and that frustrates me because it’s clear as day we should be doing things a lot better. Let’s be honest, Ineos are not where they want to be, not where they need to be and the gap is not small.”
Bigham also feels he was not given as much support for the Olympics as he would have liked, the team ultimately offering him three months of unpaid leave to prepare from May.
He continued: “Dave [Brailsford, Ineos’ director of sport] hasn’t particularly been involved since I joined. I see the media say stuff about Manchester United and a distraction but I don’t believe that is the case. Manchester United being somewhat acquired [by Ineos] has no bearing on Ineos Grenadiers as far as I can see.
“Dave had a very clear vision and a way of actioning it and a plan in his head. Maybe to some degree maybe that’s been lacking. We know what it takes to win but how do you get there? What are the processes? That’s the bit lacking clarity. That’s the bit frustrating me as well because I feel like I’ve got a very clear idea on the energy outside equation, the drag and where we need to go and we were not committing to some of the things I felt could bring some fairly significant performance.”
Responding to the Telegraph’s story, an Ineos Grenadiers spokesperson said the team was “very proud” of the support Dan had been given and argued that due to “the strength and depth we have in that area across a number of talented individuals” the team’s programme would be “unaffected” by his departure.