In the soft-focus documentary which follows Team Sky during their hugely successful 2012 season, when Bradley Wiggins wins the Tour de France, we are told a story of what can be achieved when good clean British ingenuity takes on the world’s most morally bankrupt sport. Dave Brailsford’s colleagues swoon over the benefits of their team principal’s “marginal gains” ploy; colour-coded water bottles, standardised seat heights, a luxury bus: they all count.
In one clip, team chef Soren Kristiansen cheers his energy-conserving food programme while chopping some aubergines. In another, team physio Dan Guillemette lauds their “really good” pillows. “That’s the whole thing about marginal gains,” he says, after tucking in the sleep-enhancing sheets beneath a hypoallergenic mattress. “On their own they probably don’t make a great deal of difference, but add them together and that’s the difference between this team and our rivals.”
