The construction and collapse of clean cycling discourse : the case of Sir David Brailsford

Title: The construction and collapse of clean cycling discourse : the case of Sir David Brailsford
Author: Heaney, Dermot
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2023, vol. 49, iss. 2, pp. 31-55
Extent
31-55
  • ISSN
    0524-6881 (print)
    1805-0867 (online)
Type: Article
Language
Rights access
open access
 

Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.

Abstract(s)
When Team Sky emerged on the world cycling scene, it proclaimed itself a crusader for clean competition. Team manager David Brailsford was the embodiment of this new ethos, which rested on two concepts: the CORE Principle and the Marginal Gains Theory. However, in 2016 allegations of rule bending in Team Sky emerged in the press and Brailsford was called to testify before a Parliamentary Committee on doping in sport. It was widely agreed that his testimony undermined the 'clean cycling' image constructed during his management. This paper offers a comparative, qualitative discourse analysis of an interview with Brailsford from the heyday of his 'clean discourse' and his testimony before the Committee. From the perspective of Jørgensen and Isaksson's Ethos model, a CADS approach is followed involving Hallidayan transitivity analysis to understand, first, how Brailsford's clean discourse ethos was constructed, second, why it failed him during his witness session, and how he tried to mitigate this by foregrounding alternative ethos qualities in his statements to the Committee.
References
[1] Ashford and St. Peter's Hospitals (2015) Marginal Gains. Be the Change. Retrieved from https://bethechangeasph.com/ (accessed 16.10.2019)

[2] BBC (2015) Viewpoint: Should we all be looking for marginal gains? Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34247629 (accessed 16.10.2019)

[3] Benson, Daniel (2012) Dave Brailsford's pursuit of Utopia for Team Sky. Cyclingnews. Retrieved from https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/dave-brailsfords-pursuit-of-utopia-for-team-sky/. (accessed 14.10.2019).

[4] Bloor,Thomas and Meriel Bloor (2004) The Functional Analysis of English. London: Hodder Arnold.

[5] Brooks, Ian (2016) Fifteen steps to implement Brailsford's 'theory of marginal gains'. Dnapeople. Retrieved from http://www.dnapeople.co.uk/fifteen-steps-to-implement-brailsfords-theory-of-marginal-gains/ [16.10.2019]

[6] Canty, Sam (2015) Sir Dave Brailsford –CORE principle and marginal gains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNBIQenywc (accessed 3.3.2021)

[7] Cheney, George, Lars Thøger Christensen, Charles Conrad and Dan Lair (2004) Corporate Rhetoric as Organizational Discourse. In: David Grant, Cynthia Hardy, Cliff Oswick and Linda Putnam (Eds.). Handbook of Organizational Discourse. London: SAGE. 79–103. | DOI 10.1002/hpm.830

[8] De B. Clark, Caroline (2006) Views in the News. Milan: LED.

[9] Eggins, Susan (2004) An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics. New York and London: Continuum.

[10] Fairclough, Norman (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

[11] Fotheringham, William (2017) Team Sky: Sir Dave Brailsford must face the music – and then resign. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/05/team-sky-sir-dave-brailsford (accessed 3.3.2021)

[12] Griffiths, Steve (2012) Sky goes for moral high ground on doping. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/sky-goes-for-moral-high-ground-on-doping-20121021-27zu8.html (accessed 27.5.2020)

[13] Halliday, Michael. A. K. (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.

[14] Holt, Oliver (2017) Team Sky was a grand illusion indulged by cheerleaders for too long... they've been caught out in lie after lie. Mail Online. Retrieved from Retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-4282066/Team-Sky-grand-illusion-indulged-cheerleaders.html (accessed 3.3.2021)

[15] House of Commons (2016) Combatting Doping in Sport. https://www.parliament.uk/dcmscom (accessed 3.3.2021)

[16] House of Commons (2018) Combatting Doping in Sport. https://www.parliament.uk/dcmscom (accessed 3.3.2021)

[17] Jørgensen, Poul Erik Flyvholm and Maria Isaksson (2010) Credibility in Corporate Discourse. In: M. Anna Trosborg (Ed.) Pragmatics across Languages and Cultures. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 518–541.

[18] Kayser, Bengt, Alexandre Mauron and Andy Miah (2007) Current anti-doping policy: a critical appraisal. BMC Medical Ethics, 8. Retrieved from https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6939-8-2 (accessed 3.3.2021)

[19] Kimmage, Paul (2012) How Bradley Wiggins had to fight against the sport's drug demons in a race I still can't be certain is completely clean, Mail Online. Retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-2177405/Bradley-Wiggins-battle-cyclings-drug-demons--Paul-Kimmage.html (accessed 3.3.2021)

[20] Koosha, Mansoor and Mohammad Reza Shams (2005) A Critical Study of News Discourse: Iran's Nuclear Issue in British Newspapers. IJAL, 8, 2, 107–141.

[21] Lawton, Matt (2016) Sir Bradley Wiggins, Sir Dave Brailsford and the package delivered to Team Sky: Sportsmail's investigation into the story behind UK Anti-Doping drugs probe. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-3825848/Sir-Bradley-Wiggins-Sir-Dave-Brailsford-package-delivered-Team-Sky-Sportsmail-investigation.html (accessed 3.3.2021)

[22] MacMichael, Simon (2017) From zero tolerance to zero credibility - Team Sky and Sir Dave Brailsford under attack. Road.cc. https://road.cc/content/news/218565-zero-tolerance-zero-credibility-team-sky-and-sir-dave-brailsford-under-attack (accessed 3.3.2021)

[23] McGannon, Kerry R. (2016) Critical discourse analysis in sport and exercise: What, why and how. In: Brett Smith and Andrew C. Sparkes (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise. London and New York: Routledge, 230–242.

[24] Moore, Richard (2012) Team Sky staff must sign anti-doping declaration as Brailsford reiterates zero tolerance policy. Mail Online. Retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-2219332/Team-Sky-reiterate-zero-tolerance-drug-policy-Dave-Brailsford.html (accessed 3.3. 2021)

[25] Partington, Alan and Matilde Zuccato (2018) Brexit Before and After. A Corpus-Assisted Study of the Referendum Campaigns and The Immediate Aftermath. Textus English Studies in Italy 1, 119–139.

[26] Samuel, Martin (2018) Sir David Brailsford has been the most overplayed hand in British sport. Mail Online. Retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-5465379/David-Brailsford-overplayed-hand-British-sport.html (accessed 3.3.2021)

[27] Scott, Mike (2009) In search of a bad reference corpus. In: Archer, Dawn (Ed.) What's in Word-list? Investigating Word Frequency and Keyword Extraction. London: Routledge, 79–91. | DOI 10.4324/9781315547411-16

[28] Scott, Mike and Christopher Tribble (2006) Textual Patterns: Key words and corpus analysis in language education. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

[29] Slater, Matt (2012) Team Sky strive for cycling's moral high ground. BBC. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/20147726 (accessed 3.3.2021)

[30] Telegraph Cycling Podcast (2014). Retrieved from https://thecyclingpodcast.com/podcast/stage-4-dave-brailsford-opens-up (accessed 29.5.2018)

[31] UKAD (2018) About therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs). Retrieved from https://www.ukad.org.uk/medications-and-substances/about-TUE/ (accessed 2.5.2018)

[32] WADA (2018) The International Standard Prohibited List. Retrieved from https://www.wada-ama.org/en/resources/science-medicine/prohibited-list-documents (accessed 19.7.2018)

[33] Wick, Douglas A. (2019) Measuring ROI - Create Marginal Gains. Positioning Systems: Strategic Discipline, March 25, 2019. Retrieved from https://strategicdiscipline.positioningsystems.com/blog-0/measuring-roi-create-marginal-gains (accessed 16.10.2019).

[34] Whittle, Jeremy (2015). Team Sky's zero tolerance policy comes under intense scrutiny. The Times. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/team-skys-zero-tolerance-policy-comes-under-intense-scrutiny-lkw0fdx0rqb (accessed 3.3.2021)