Sir Dave Brailsford was born on 29 February 1964 in Derby but, fittingly for the son of an Alpine mountain guide, moved with his family to Deiniolen, North Wales, at the foot of Snowdon when he was aged two.

Dave spent four years as a competitive cyclist in St. Etienne in France chasing his dream of winning the ultimate cycling challenge, the Tour de France before returning to the UK to study for his first degree in Sports Science and Psychology at the University of Chester. He subsequently went on to study for an MBA at Sheffield Business School.

Dave has been involved in cycling throughout his career and was first employed by the GB Cycling Team as a consultant following the advent of lottery funding. He then moved on to become Programmes Director before becoming Performance Director. He brought to the role a blend of sporting knowledge and business acumen, which he utilised to lead and develop the team into one of the most respected and successful Olympic Programmes across all sports.

Dave led the team through the successful Athens Olympics campaign in 2004, where the team picked up four medals, two of them gold. And, of course, in the Beijing Olympics the GB Cycling Team won an unprecedented fourteen medals – eight gold medals, four silver medals, and two bronze medals – placing them firmly into the history books.

2010 was a significant year for Dave as he saw his dream of a British professional road cycling team realised in the shape of Team Sky, of which he was the Team Principal. Team Sky was built on Dave’s principles that made GB so successful on the track whilst inspiring people of all ages and abilities to get out on their bikes.

In 2012, Dave once again placed Britain in the history books when Team Sky’s Bradley Wiggins became the first British rider ever to win the Tour de France. The momentum of Bradley’s success carried over to the London 2012 Olympics, where GB repeated their medal haul of 8 gold medals. 2013 also brought in another successful year for Dave. In the Queen’s New Years Honours list, Dave was awarded a Knighthood, which he collected on 28 February 2013.

Following this, Dave lead Team Sky to his second, third and fourth Tour de France wins with Chris Froome, another British rider in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Dave also steered Chris Froome to three consecutive Grand Tour wins with the Tour de France 2017 victory followed by wins at the Vuelta a Espana in September and the Giro d’Italia in May 2018. This was then followed by Team Sky’s sixth Tour de France success with a third British rider when Geraint Thomas won the prestigious race in July 2018.

In May 2019 INEOS took ownership of the team and the INEOS Grenadiers (formally Team INEOS) was founded. Dave remained as Team Principal and guided Egan Bernal, the first ever Colombian, to win the Tour de France as the youngest rider in 100 years at the age of 22. This was Dave’s seventh Tour de France victory in 8 years.