Rotten
Well, what’s the call? Should we take Chris Froome’s belated and lukewarm endorsement of David Brailsford, his boss at Sky, as a sign that the storm will shortly blow over?
Os should we listen to Britain’s Emma Poole’s assessment of Brailsford’s role at British Cycling in creating a “culture of fear?” Coming on the heels of a damning — and leaked — report from UKAD, Pooley said, “A fish rots from the head.” That would be Brailsford, sporting the fish head, not the skinhead look.
We’re assuming that Froome’s late rescue of Brailsford’s reputation has basically saved his team manager from being sacked. A number of Sky rider’s had already been debating whether Brailsford should step down but that never went anywhere past anonymous chatter.
Sky’s Giro d’Italia leader Geraint Thomas went all-in in his Save Dave efforts but fans and journalists kept waiting to see which way Froome, Sky’s unofficial moral compass, would swing. A negative critique from Froome might have been the death knell but it never happened. Froome dutifully went before the press as good soldier and said while mistakes were made, he’s just fine with Brailsford still running the show.
We have to assume that Froome extracted a promise or two from Brailsford in return for playing savior. No idea what that might be, but the upshot is that Froome is not smelling anything fishy about Brailsford. Nothing odiferous, nothing disgusting, nothing in an advanced stage of rot.
Certainly Team Sky’s reputation has taken several massive hits since Fancy Bear and Jiffy Bag became part of our vocabulary. The word “tatters” was used lot and plenty of people now turn their nose up at Sky, but rotten fish head? You decide.
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