Dave Brailsford and Team Sky dodging the press does nothing for a team trying to emphasise their transparency

Tour de France 2017: Team Sky broke with decades of tradition by not putting the yellow jersey up for media availability - baffling their rivals and onlooking journalists

Dave Brailsford's difficult year is getting no easier (Getty)

Back in the 2013 Tour, following a lengthy transfer from southern France to Saint-Nazaire, and shortly after Sky had taken a severe hammering in the Pyrenees, the team gave its usual first rest day press conference. Team Principal Sir Dave Brailsford observed that it was “It’s only fair he [Sky leader Chris Froome] is asked challenging questions, that’s part of his job.”

Fast forward to an identical rest day in 2017 after another 600 kilometre transfer and another tough mountain stage and, on this occasion, Froome did not have the opportunity to answer any such questions from the written media. The simple reason being Sky did not hold a press conference.

From a historic point of view in the Tour, this was a bizarre, ground-breaking decision, given for years - decades, according to one reporter - the maillot jaune has always talked at length to media on the rest day.

Concerning Sky, given the turbulence that has surrounded the team over the past months, some might deem rejecting a chance at marginally deeper media scrutiny a risky move, particularly for team keen to emphasise their transparency.

Ironically enough, on a day-to-day basis short-form answer basis in this year’s Tour, Froome and most of the remainder of the Sky riders and management have been as willing as ever to communicate with the press. Even after Thursday’s loss of the lead and at a time when his morale can hardly have been high, to his credit, Froome was prepared to face the media.

The partial exception to this rule has been Sky’s embattled Team Principal Sir Dave Brailsford. Brailsford was willing to field questions in Sky’s pre-race press conference. However, given it was held, also unprecedentedly for Sky, a full three days before the Tour began, and well before a fair part of the media had reached Dusseldorf’s Grand Depart, such an early press meet hardly did many favours to the press.

Either way, since then the sight of Brailsford’s once familiar face discussing team strategy pre- and post stage, has become far less frequent and occasionally far more edgy. An attempt by Dan Benson, editor in chief of Cyclingnews (full disclosure: for whom I work regularly in a freelance capacity) and another reporter to make a ‘grab’ of an interview with a tv station was given the green light, according to Benson, by the camera crew. Not so by Brailsford, who told Benson in fairly profane terms his ‘grab’ was not going to happen.

Benson is at pains to emphasise that on a rider-to-reporter daily basis, there are no issues whatsoever for Cyclingnews at Sky. And Sky’s Head of Communications, Ben Wright, insists that the lack of a rest day press conference was because “of the the logistics and the transfers from the Sunday’s stage and the fact that the riders had had an incredibly tough weekend.”

“So we made the decision, having been in yellow every day and since there’d been media commitments every day that we’d give the riders a proper rest day.” He also points out that a small number of tv channels were allowed to do some interviews.

There was no link, Wright says, with the increased scrutiny surrounding Sky following the turbulence of previous months. Although he refuses to comment on the Benson-Brailsford encounter, he insists “there’s certainly no attempt on our part not to engage with the media.”

However, other press officers argued that rest day press conferences are precisely what Grand Tour leaders need to get media obligations out of the way.

“It’s extra pressure because they have to answer questions and you’re still ‘in the race’, but it’s very slight.” Jacinto Vidarte, press officer for Alberto Contador, the winner of seven Grand Tours.

“Also it frees them up from too many interviews. ANd If you don’t have it, you isolate the rider too much from the press.” “They’re a plus rather than a minus” is how Movistar’s Head of Communications David García puts it.

Contador was thanked, too, in his rest day press conference last week by one reporter for his media availability, to which the Spaniard answered that he appreciated the considerable economic outlay involved in sending the press to the Tour.

“If you weren’t here, nobody would know what we were doing,” Contador said, “Talking to you is the least we can do.”