Bradley Wiggins claims marginal gains are "rubbish"

I used to train athletics with Steve Peters and he's a lovely bloke. It's easy to say all this now you've retired Wiggo. I do agree with you in that you need 95% talent/hard work but to win a race I think you need every advantage you can get, the other 5%, just like your jiffy bag?!

Has he not just backed up what "marginal gains" are? The other 5%?

Tell the truth, that would shock a few people.

Oh dear. How to be right and wrong, spectacularly, at the same time.

The thing with stuff like marginal gains, or the chimp paradox, is that they are brands, and like all brands, there'sa huge amount of hype behind them, in order to sell them, but actually, there's substance too.

Steve Peters re-packaged a set of ideas that are almost commonplace in terms of psychology, in an attractive, user-friendly metaphor, and sold them. The fact that that is a selfish act on his part (he was trying to make money, not heal the world) doesn't change the fact that there are useful truths in there, and a useful metaphor.

Marginal gains is an interesting way of packing the idea of continuous improvement, of working on every component of performance. It won't make me a world champion, because I'm fat old and slow, and Wiggins is right that you have to have the base right in order to fine tune it with marginal gains, but once you have the base then every little bit helps. Yes, Dave B re-packaged this pretty much boring management practice in a way that made the mundane part of his personal brand, but hey, sportsmanagement isa career of finite length, and he needs to promote himself in order to put money away for the  afterlife of an ex sports manager.

Sounds like Brad is working on his personal brand, as cycling's answer to Jeremy Clarkson.

Yep couldn't agree more unconstituted.

The mystery package diclosure will be nothing spectacular. He's hardly going to say it was a banned substance and run the risk of having his TdF title taken from him.

As for marginal gains, it just another coaches way of explaining how they get the best out of a person.   

This from the man who set a new hour world record using every marginal gain in the book, and then some.

He wants to be a "celebrity" now that he's retired. That's why he appeared on The Jump. Anything he says from this point forward is merely to generate media coverage and can be taken with a rather large pinch of salt.

"Marginal gains is bollocks" makes a headline. Nevermind that he went on to explain that it "only" gave him 5%, thus nullifying the headline. Journos are writing about it and we're discussing it.

Almost makes me want to rush out and buy a Skoda...

Marginal gains are just that - marginal.

I reckon 5% is marginal too!

Likelihood of getting full facts is marginal.

So he was forced to take medication? That seems to be what he is implying.

In summary:

Outspoken, naturally talented athlete says that his success is mainly down to him, rather than the management, equipment innovation, and coaching structures around him. 

Our 'golden era' of cycling must have therefore been down to the coincidental emergence of a whole batch of naturally talented, world beating cyclists.  

Brad always came across as cagey, not that proud of his TdF win, compared to the other acheivements in his palmares. But all this biting of the hand that fed him, wow. Whenever it all comes out , he's not going to have too many friends

There are no mystery packages wearing lycra!

So far I have been proved right about SKY doing everything they could within the rulebook using performance enhancing drugs.

I can only hope I'm going to be right that the disgraced cyclist bradley wiggins get's his wins taken from him.

They made me do it I was told to do it...Isn't that the line David Millar took? Unfortunately for Mr Wiggins David Millar was a humble affable chap with big eyes who got away with the sob story, I think Wiggins arrogance is too similar too familiar to the significantly faster, signnificantly better cyclist from Texas.

Brad brad brad, you got dragged to your tdf win by froome and only won it because he was told to let you, and now this? No class. 

The mystery package was his sandwiches for lunch.  Jam.

And Brad W was so much better than the oppo that even without his 5% of pillow based marginal gains, he would have romped home.   

Can I say that former national treasure Bradley Wiggins might be better off keeping his gob shut rather than coming over as a bit of a selfish and stupid knob?

I was at the talk. He was entertaining, pretty funny and honest about things up to a point - he obviously didn't discuss the ongoing investigation or anything too controversial...but he did mention the 'death star going into meltdown in the last few months' and a few other things. 

People are looking for too deep a meaning over his comments in this thread. It was a talk to various city mamil types, part of his retirement plan to give talks for money and so on (he mentioned this). 

And the talk was free to attend, so I didn't have any complaints!

Sorry for stating the obvious, Bradley, but a"marginal gains" program in the Team Sky context assumes that they are working with top of their game athletes who want to win. As their name denotes Team Sky performs as a team,much the chagrin of the competition, and dumping on your old team now shows a big lack of style. 

Obviously , a slice of humble pie was not included in your mystery care package.....

"...when you're a man of my integrity..."