Netcompany-Ineos, which started as Team Sky, was a forerunner of marginal gains, where small optimisations are made in the hope of a big overall reward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That approach has become the norm in pro cycling, with the likes of Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates XRG employing huge budgets to eke out every possible advantage.<\/p>\n
But ahead of yesterday\u2019s team time trial<\/a> in Barcelona, Netcompany-Ineos employed a peculiar tactic before they rolled down the start ramp in the 30-degree heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n The team\u2019s eight riders sat next to one another with their arms in large plastic tubs full of water in a bid to keep cool.\u00a0<\/p>\n The approach gained the squad attention at the race, and online where the official Tour de France X account posted a clip of the team. One user commented that, \u201cPro cycling just got a tad weirder\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n With Europe set to be hit by extreme heat in the coming days<\/a>, this might not be the last time we see Tour de France teams<\/a> turning to novel approaches to stay cool.\u00a0<\/p>\n Race director Christian Prudhomme has already said that organisers will be taking extra measures to help riders and fans deal with the heat, which could hit 40\u02daC during stage 4 on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n Netcompany-Ineos had hopes to claim the yellow jersey on the first stage of the race, and came crushingly close after a fraught race.\u00a0<\/p>\n K\u00e9vin Vauquelin punctured with 7km remaining of the 19.6km stage, wiping out his hopes of victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n Filippo Ganna almost saved the day with a powerful ride on the final climb up to Barcelona\u2019s Olympic stadium. But the Italian finished 8 seconds behind the race\u2019s first yellow jersey, won by Jonas Vingegaard.\u00a0<\/p>\n Consolation came through Egan Bernal winning the first green jersey of the race after he led the team through the intermediate sprint.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Netcompany-Ineos, which started as Team Sky, was a forerunner of marginal gains, where small optimisations are made in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-674812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}