British Cycling had recently hired Dave Brailsford as its new director. At the time, professional cyclists in Great Britain had1 nearly one hundred years of mediocrity (平庸). In fact, their performance had been so poor that one of the top bike companies in Europe 2 to sell bikes to the team because they were afraid that it would hurt sales if other professionals saw the Brits using their bikes.
What made Brailsford different from previous coaches was his philosophy of searching for a tiny improvement in everything they do. The whole principle came from the idea that if you 3 everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, improve it by 1 percent and you will get a 4 increase when you put them all together.
Brailsford and his coaches began by making small 5. They redesigned the bike seats to make them more comfortable. They asked riders to wear electrically heated overshorts to 6 ideal muscle temperature while riding and used biofeedback sensors to 7 how each athlete responded to a particular workout.
But they didn't stop there. They 8 to find 1 percent improvements in overlooked areas. They hired a(n) 9 to teach each rider the best way to wash their hands to reduce the 10 of catching a cold. They even painted the inside of the team truck white, which helped them 11 little bits of dust that would normally slip by 12 but could affect the performance of the 13 tuned bikes.
As these and hundreds of other small improvement 14, the results came faster than anyone could have 15. Just five years after Brailford took over, they dominate the road and truck cycling events in all the important events.
