NUTRITION’S REVOLUTION

Jacques Anquetil was famed for his diet, or rather, his lack of a diet. In 1963, on the night before the Ronde d’Auvergne race, the Frenchman stayed up until 5am drinking champagne, beer and whisky, before eating two fried eggs and going to bed. Paul Howard, in his biography of the rider, Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape, tells us that Anquetil had also spent the evening perfecting how to safely eat the glass he was drinking from. He won the 270km race the next day, of course.

Cycling nutrition has moved on a long way since then, with most WorldTour teams employing their own chef and nutritional experts. With weight and energy such a crucial part of the sport, it is surprising that specialist nutritionists were not an integral part of the WorldTour peloton until about 10 years ago, one of the many ‘marginal gains’ Team Sky claimed to bring to the sport.