{"id":814787,"date":"2026-10-26T21:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T21:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/814787\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T21:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T21:34:15","slug":"what-if-every-rider-had-a-digital-clone-the-next-frontier-of-scouting-training-racing-and-recovery-using-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/814787\/","title":{"rendered":"What if every rider had a digital clone? The next frontier of scouting, training, racing and recovery using data"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018In an ideal world you\u2019d have embedded sensors tracking processes in your blood. To really understand a cyclist,\u00a0 a human, to see how they are responding to training, feeding and recovery, you need continuous markers. We\u2019re not there yet, but the technology is emerging.\u2019 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s Scott Drawer, performance director of Netcompany Ineos. He\u2019s talking about digital twins, which could be the future of cycling. As you\u2019ll discover in this article, the advent of artificial intelligence and omics could transform what it means to be a world-class rider\u2026<\/p>\n

What is a digital twin?<\/p>\n

\"vo2_max_watts\"<\/p>\n

IBM describes a \u2018digital twin\u2019 <\/a>as a \u2018dynamic, virtual replica of a physical object, system or process that stays connected to its real-world counterpart through two-way data flows\u2019. The idea is that you use real-world data to simulate, monitor and predict how the real-world counterpart behaves via a virtual twin clone.<\/p>\n

For instance, in healthcare, there\u2019s \u2018surgical rehearsal\u2019 where a surgeon can virtually \u2018cut\u2019 a piece of heart tissue or place a catheter to treat an irregular heartbeat. The digital twin instantly simulates how the heart\u2019s electrical paths will reroute, showing whether the procedure will cure the arrhythmia or cause a new problem.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s \u2018drug response testing\u2019. If a patient needs a medication that carries a minor risk of a cardiac side-effect, the clinician can apply the drug\u2019s chemical profile to the patient\u2019s digital twin. The twin simulates how the patient\u2019s specific ion channels will react, flagging whether the drug is safe or likely to trigger a heart attack.<\/p>\n

Healthcare is driving this to keep people out of hospital, but what has this to do with cycling? Well, sceptics might suggest that history shows therapeutic advancements (eg, the blood booster erythropoietin to treat anaemia) are inevitably rebooted as performance-boosters. But no, this is a legitimate transfer of technology that could cover all areas of performance cycling.<\/p>\n

Identifying the next Froome<\/p>\n

\"02\/11\/2024A.S.O\/Thomas Maheux<\/p>\n

I dropped Drawer a line off the back of a press release from Swansea University earlier this year<\/a> that announced a collaboration with the Ineos team ‘towards the development of digital twins for efficient talent identification in professional cycling’.<\/p>\n

‘It\u2019s a small project involving one PhD student who\u2019s great with data and loves cycling,’ Drawer says. ‘There\u2019s so much information available publicly these days. People post rides on Strava and results are easier to find. Even at a basic level useful signals are available online. The Swansea project is about developing tools that can gather and analyse that public information to help identify outliers and promising opportunities, although I\u2019d call it a “lite digital twin”.’<\/p>\n

Drawer says that young talent has become increasingly important in professional cycling and, though they were late to the development programme, a team won\u2019t survive without that clear pathway from juniors to seniors.<\/p>\n

‘There\u2019s huge competition to identify riders with the greatest potential,’ he says. ‘Of course, scouts and agents have their place and will continue to do so \u2013 it\u2019s through them that we discovered Benjam\u00edn Noval three years ago. But refining that process is key to progress.’<\/p>\n

In 2025, the team signed Noval Junior at just 16 with the now 18-year-old set to race for the senior team in 2027. In September, Noval won both the junior road race and time-trial at the UCI World Championships in Montreal.<\/p>\n

The signs are promising that Noval will have an impact at WorldTour level, although Drawer caveats that the relationship between junior joy and senior success is low. A digital twin might reduce the guesswork. As will the team\u2019s headline sponsors.<\/p>\n

The truth-seekers<\/p>\n

\"\"Netcompany Ineos<\/p>\n

‘By far the biggest impact for us in this space is our partnership with Netcompany,’ says Drawer. ‘The technological scale and capability that we can access is unique in this sport and other sports. Netcompany describes itself as the “orchestrator”, and I\u2019d say that\u2019s right.’<\/p>\n

Core to the Danish\u2019s company\u2019s success is Pulse<\/a>. This is its real-time, AI-driven platform that consolidates massive streams of data from \u2018fragmented ecosystems\u2019 into a single, operational interface.<\/p>\n

Netcompany made its name in the aviation industry, where the Pulse platform is branded \u2018Airhart\u2019. It serves as the digital backbone for Heathrow, Munich and Copenhagen airports to orchestrate flights, baggage and passenger tracking.<\/p>\n

‘Imagine a flight is delayed by a headwind,’ says Drawer. ‘The gate it was due to use is occupied, and a large group of passengers is building up in one part of the terminal. That chain of events affects ground staff, catering and passenger communications. Netcompany\u2019s software helps coordinate all those moving parts so the airport can operate efficiently.’<\/p>\n

Cycling is drowning in data. You have instrumented cranks, heart rate monitors, head units\u2026 But in the technological revolution, collecting data is the easy bit. It\u2019s making sense of it for positive interventions that\u2019s the tricky part. And that covers all areas of a professional team.<\/p>\n

‘Look at how much software has evolved and is impacting cycling,’ says Drawer. ‘A sports director uses VeloViewer, while being fed video images of the race and a live feed from ProCyclingStats. It\u2019s a blizzard of information, a blizzard of data, and you\u2019re trying to make sense of it all for practical decisions. It\u2019s the same with coaches, nutritionists, doctors, aerodynamicists\u2026 But just because you can measure something doesn\u2019t mean it has value. You must organise your data and information for points of truth. That\u2019s what Netcompany is brilliant at and I think we\u2019ll start to see the benefits of our collaboration next season. Ultimately, before you even think about a digital twin, you must have quality data and deep insights.’<\/p>\n

Painting a complete picture<\/p>\n

\"vo2_max_lactic_acid\"<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also where the likes of Irish outfit Orreco come in. Founded by Dr Brian Moore in 2010, the company uses their proprietary AI and years of sport-science knowledge to accelerate recovery, optimise performance and prolong an athlete\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

‘In the 90s, before launching Orreco, we started with a stopwatch, a lactate sensor, a Polar chest strap and a pencil,’ says Moore. ‘Now, we\u2019re using Bayesian inference models, agentic AI, biomarkers and computer vision to track athlete readiness, recovery and injury prevention.’<\/p>\n

Orreco worked with Drawer and the Netcompany Ineos team at altitude camps, and monitored rider response at Grand Tours. It has also collaborated with Newcastle United football team for years, plus the NBA\u2019s Dallas Mavericks and the NFL\u2019s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.<\/p>\n

‘We also worked with Dr Pete Cunningham and the cyclors onboard Team Ineos Brittania in the America\u2019s Cup,’ says Moore. ‘Those boys were pushing some monstrous numbers as they were providing all the power for the manoeuvres and rigging. They were effectively cycling in a carbon-fibre furnace with tremendous thermal stress given the position in the boat. It was impressive.’<\/p>\n

Orreco\u2019s five modules provide a view of athlete health. \u2018Biomarkers\u2019 uses bloodwork to assess stress, inflammation, recovery and readiness, helping staff decide when training changes or assessment may be needed. \u2018Medical Notes\u2019 centralises medical and physiotherapy records, case notes and athlete status, supporting rehabilitation tracking and return-to-play decisions.<\/p>\n

Then you have \u2018Recovery Lab\u2019, which combines GPS workload, wellness, sleep, wearable data, biomarkers and testing to personalise recovery. \u2018Motion Signal\u2019 uses computer vision to detect movement changes that may indicate overload and inform conditioning or rehabilitation. Finally, there\u2019s \u2018Analytics and Reporting\u2019, which brings performance data into dashboards to monitor trends, compare athletes and guide coaching and medical decisions.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the bloodwork, all of this starts with a sample via the vein or a finger-prick. ‘We can then, for instance, track each rider against their own baseline over time,’ says Moore. ‘If a rider\u2019s oxidative stress is climbing while their antioxidant levels are dropping, they flag it to the coach. The insights from the biomarkers might mean swapping a planned interval session for an easy spin and focusing on sleep and nutrition for 48 hours.’<\/p>\n

Moore says they worked with one cyclist whose power files looked strong, but their blood showed sharp cellular stress and rising inflammation.\u00a0They advised the coach to drop a planned three-day hard block and focus on recovery. A few days later, other riders in the training group on that same hard block came down with upper respiratory tract infections, while this athlete stayed healthy and was\u00a0back hitting peak numbers the following week.<\/p>\n

As for digital twins, the thought excites Moore, who highlights that there\u2019s already some advanced work on digital twins around aerodynamics and bike fit. ‘But our focus is about the biological digital twin, which is about modelling how the rider\u2019s body will virtually respond to an intervention’, he says. ‘We already work with omics data, like metabolomics, and we\u2019re using frontier models to help simulate state changes. That level of detail all makes the digital twin more realistic. The goal is simple: if a rider does \u2018X\u2019 on stage 14, what will their recovery state look like the next morning? That allows teams to plan tactics around real physiology rather than guessing.’<\/p>\n

You might have heard of metabolomics. This branch of omics was thrust into the cycling media\u2019s consciousness when then UAE Team Emirates\u2019 head of performance I\u00f1igo San Mill\u00e1n (now at Athletic Bilbao FC) revealed he\u2019d measured hundreds of thousands of metabolites in Tadej Poga\u010dar’s blood. The results led to San Millan concluding that elite riders like the Slovenian possess a metabolic signature, a unique phenotype, that means they can absorb huge volumes of training.<\/p>\n

In the case of Poga\u010dar, specific biomarkers revealed how he not only recovered rapidly between stages but also between surges, explaining his ability to go and go again when climbing. ‘With this metabolomic work, we can see how interventions and personalised intensities of exercise and durations can help a rider,’ San Mill\u00e1n said.<\/p>\n

\"julianA.S.O.\/Charly Lopez<\/p>\n

Ruben Robberechts is a researcher in exercise physiology at Hasselt University in Limburg. He has led his own metabolomic research that revealed the metabolic response to ‘excessive endurance exercise’ by studying seven riders at the 2023 Tour de France. That excessiveness comprised 3,404km and 56,482m of climbing, resulting in a total work output of around 75,500kJ.<\/p>\n

(Note: Robberechts doesn\u2019t reveal which team he shadowed but one of the co-authors, Koen Pelgrim, is a trainer at Soudal Quick-Step, so we speculate that the septet profiled included two-time world champion Julian Alaphilippe, while the eighth starter, Fabio Jakobsen, withdrew on Stage 12 due to a lingering shoulder injury from Stage 4.)<\/p>\n

‘One of the major findings of the study explicitly linked serum L-carnitine status and fatigue,’ Robberechts says. L-carnitine is a naturally occurring substance made mainly by your liver and kidneys. It helps the body transport fat into cells\u2019 mitochondria, where it can be used to produce energy. ‘Given our observation, L-carnitine supplementation may be a potent strategy to attenuate fatigue during the Tour de France.’<\/p>\n

Robberechts also revealed significant depletion of numerous amino acids, including cysteine. Cysteine helps to \u2018buffer\u2019 or neutralise excess reactive oxygen species, which you produce in spades when exercising hard. ‘It\u2019s why recovery shakes could include elevated levels of cysteine for multi-stage races,’ he says.<\/p>\n

Robberechts\u2019 findings also bridged two spheres: the clinical and the sporting. During the pandemic, it became clear that when a person contracted Covid, levels of the peptide GDF-15 (Growth Differentiation Factor-15) spiked, making it one of the most reliable laboratory indicators for how severe the disease would become.<\/p>\n

GDF-15 release is a stress reaction, which is why Robberechts monitored its levels during the 2023 study as well as an earlier one in 2019: ‘We noted its rise is a useful biomarker to gauge when overreaching might tip over into overtraining.’<\/p>\n

Interestingly his earlier research also revealed that ketone<\/a> supplementation blunted the GDF-15 response in the third week of the Tour. As high levels suppress appetite, the riders consumed more calories, which historically drop during the latter stages due to the intense training and fuelling regime. That doesn\u2019t signal the green light for recreational riders to whip out their credit cards for a ketone bump, of course, as these GDF-15 levels only remain significantly high after days and days and etc, of hard riding.<\/p>\n

It does, however, highlight that such detailed biological insight can actually lead to practical interventions: ‘And I feel this is just the start,’ Robberechts says. ‘We used the dried spot technique for blood collection, which is almost imperceptible, requires just a droplet or two of blood, and doesn\u2019t require fridge storage.’ All reasons why it\u2019s now used in anti-doping circles.<\/p>\n

Rise of the biotech bikers<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Made of Genes is another AI-powered biomedical intelligence company from Spain, who either take a swab or blood sample that contributes to a ‘digital twin that combines what never changes, such as genetics, with what shifts every day: internal biology, training and racing load, heart-rate variability, sleep, nutrition, travel and schedule,’ says the company\u2019s founder Laura Isus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Made of Genes has worked with Spanish UCI ProTeam Equipo Kern Pharma and extensively with Barcelona\u2019s women\u2019s football team. Earlier this year, both outfits, plus the University of Bonn, announced they\u2019d developed an AI framework to anticipate injuries in elite women\u2019s football. Analysing four seasons of data from 34 players, it identifies cumulative fatigue and workload as key risk factors, helping medical and coaching staff personalise rest and improve player availability.<\/p>\n

‘Our models are tested retrospectively and then prospectively by making predictions before they happen and checking them against real outcomes and against decisions the staff would have made without the model,’ Isus explains. ‘In elite football, our injury watchlist flagged more than 70% of non-contact injuries ahead of time, giving medical staff a window to act before injury happened.’<\/p>\n

According to their statistics, they prevented 22.7% of injuries, meaning 20 days greater availability per player per season, which in economic terms saved the club \u20ac1.2 million per season.<\/p>\n

Revived DNA offers a similar service to Made of Genes, which works across most sports and many teams but, in the interests of NDAs, can\u2019t say who. Its metric dashboard sucks in genetic, blood and wearables data to generate a dashboard that channels the results into \u2018performance\u2019, \u2018recovery\u2019 and \u2018career longevity\u2019.<\/p>\n

Key to the company\u2019s progress is, says founder Mark Notton, understanding the biological pathway: ‘For instance, if you have a blood test and it shows that you\u2019re deficient in vitamin C, you might be prescribed more vitamin C. But the body\u2019s not that simple and it could be a different pathway that\u2019s causing the problem, which might require a different solution. The body isn\u2019t a single root, it\u2019s a massive tree with multiple different pathways.<\/p>\n

‘Another example is an athlete who enjoyed an ice bath after exercise, but when we sequenced his genetics we noticed that he naturally had a hard time dilating his blood vessels. That meant by hitting an ice bath, which constricted his vessels further, it impaired recovery and adaptation. He wanted to bulk up, so the team changed the ice bath to hot-water immersion. That helped with the dilation, he adapted better and piled on four pounds of muscle.<\/p>\n

‘Then there was the rugby player with 80 caps to his name who, genetically, was the fastest recoverer we\u2019d ever mapped. He said the results matched his experience, as he\u2019d hit training the day after a match and could be ready to play full-on again. He recovered so swiftly his teammates said he had “Wolverine blood”. It\u2019s results like this that make the thought of a digital twin exciting.’<\/p>\n

Monitored 24\/7<\/p>\n

\"rest_and_rebuild_illo\"<\/p>\n

But, in Drawer\u2019s eyes, we\u2019re not there yet: ‘In an ideal world, you\u2019d have embedded sensors tracking the immune system, cardiovascular system, metabolic system\u2026 Riders have blood taken every quarter or maybe every eight weeks, but these are just snapshots and you don\u2019t really know what\u2019s happened in between. Constant signals would mean the digital twin would be incredibly accurate and useful.’<\/p>\n

Drawer concedes it sounds a little Big Brother, but is it far-fetched? Maybe ten years ago, but riders already use continuous glucose monitors so that Rubicon has already been crossed. ‘Signals from your body would go up to the cloud where your digital twin is sucking in all those signals to tell you to put in a big effort or ease off,’ he says.<\/p>\n

Drawer also says the field of digital twins has potential to sprout from the individual to teams. He directs me to Alex Pentland\u2019s book Social Physics, where office workers wore proximity sensors. The field is called \u2018sociometry\u2019. The sensors monitored how many times and for how long individuals interacted, be it a chat over the printer or while sipping coffee. ‘They showed the quality of connections among a group was a powerful predictor of a team\u2019s performance, not necessarily in sport but in other domains, but it reflects that we\u2019re social creatures.<\/p>\n

‘When you\u2019re racing, you ride as a team, so cohesion and connection is vital. It\u2019s human evolution. It\u2019s how we survived as clans and tribes. That psychosocial connection plays out in physiology. If you bond with someone, believe in someone, you\u2019ll really want to fight for them. That rider would then give that little bit more because they\u2019re more connected to the group. What happens above the neck is untapped. Achieve that with a digital twin and who knows how fast the peloton will ride.’<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the future of pro cycling is less about collecting more data and more about understanding what it all means. From Orreco\u2019s AI-powered biomarker analysis to the emerging concept of biological digital twins, technology is bringing teams closer to understanding how riders respond to training, racing and recovery. The goal is not simply to predict when a rider will perform, tire or get injured, but to understand why and what can be done about it. Yet the perfect digital replica remains some way off.<\/p>\n

Until continuous biological monitoring becomes a reality, snapshots of bloodwork, wearable data and performance metrics can only tell part of the story. The challenge is turning those fragments into meaningful decisions without losing sight of the human being behind the numbers.<\/p>\n

Get that balance right and digital twins could transform talent identification, recovery and race strategy, potentially changing not just how fast cyclists ride, but how long they can sustain their careers. As Drawer suggests, the next frontier may be understanding not only the individual rider, but also the connections that make a team greater than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018In an ideal world you\u2019d have embedded sensors tracking processes in your blood. To really understand a cyclist,\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,52999,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-814787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-ineos-grenadiers","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814787","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=814787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}