chap1.txt

They tested different types
of massage gels to see which one led to the fastest muscle recovery. They hired a
surgeon to teach each rider the best way to wash their hands to reduce the
chances of catching a cold. They determined the type of pillow and mattress that
led to the best night’s sleep for each rider. They even painted the inside of the
team truck white, which helped them spot little bits of dust that would normally
slip by unnoticed but could degrade the performance of the finely tuned bikes.
As these and hundreds of other small improvements accumulated, the results
came faster than anyone could have imagined.
Just five years after Brailsford took over, the British Cycling team dominated
the road and track cycling events at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, where
they won an astounding 60 percent of the gold medals available. Four years
later, when the Olympic Games came to London, the Brits raised the bar as they
set nine Olympic records and seven world records.
That same year, Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the
Tour de France. The next year, his teammate Chris Froome won the race, and he
would go on to win again in 2015, 2016, and 2017, giving the British team five
Tour de France victories in six years.
During the ten-year span from 2007 to 2017, British cyclists won 178 world
championships and sixty-six Olympic or Paralympic gold medals and captured
five Tour de France victories in what is widely regarded as the most successful
run in cycling history.
How does this happen? How does a team of previously ordinary athletes
transform into world champions with tiny changes that, at first glance, would
seem to make a modest difference at best? Why do small improvements
accumulate into such remarkable results, and how can you replicate this
approach in your own life?

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