Dave Brailsford can be credited as the reason that Britain is so good at cycling in the last decade or so.
He was the performance director at British cycling for almost two decades and has been head of Team Sky since 2010. Since then, he's seen Sky riders win the Tour de France four times. First, Bradley Wiggins in 2012, then all three of Chris Froome's victories.
At time of writing, Froome is wearing the yellow jersey. He holds an 18-second lead ahead of Fabio Aru of Italy. The riders are currently on their second and last rest day of the tour, before a 103-mile trek from Le Puy-en-Velay to Romans-sur-Isère tomorrow.
Team Sky called a media event in a mixed zone for journalists to question Chris Froome. However, before Cyclingnews could get there, Brailsford launched an astonishing attack against them.
Reporter Barry Ryan had written a feature about how Brailsford had a 'year of silence', but was confronted by the general manager. He wasn't very happy, telling Ryan:
You're not invited. We have invited the people we want to speak to. You've been writing shit about me.
I'm not getting into that. It was opinion, you write shit.
We make ourselves available, we answer all the questions and you write this shit
Ryan noted that the last time a manager acted like this with the media, Lance Armstrong was disqualified. Brailsford refuted the insinuation:
You can stick it up your arse.
Team Sky have faced investigations before.
The Derbyshire native has twice been awarded the BBC Sports Personality Coach of the Year (in 2008 and 2012 following Olympics). We doubt that this language will help him to get a third.
