சிறுதுளி பெருவெள்ளம் by SRI GOPALA SUBRAMANIAN (RYLA 41.0)

Dave Brailsford

In 2003, Dave Brailsford was appointed as performing director for British cycling team. Prior to his appointment, British had won just a single gold medal at the Olympic games since 1908. They had never won in ‘Tour de France’ The biggest cycling race for 110 long years. 

The Magic Formula

He found a strategy and referred it as “The aggregation of marginal gains” which emphasis the search of tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. Brailsford and his team started making small adjustments to the cycling teams in each and every way. They redesigned the cycle seats to make it more comfortable. They referred players to wear electrically heated shorts to maintain body temperature. Then used biofeedback sensors to monitor how each athlete responded to workouts.

They tried to find 1 percent improvements in every area of the sport. They examined different types of massage gels to see which one made the fastest recovery for the athletes. They tested the best pillow and mattress for every athlete to make sure they get quality sleep. These small improvements accumulated slowly.

Show Time

They made these small improvements for the next 5 years and 2008 Beijing Olympics came. The results were astounding, British Cycling Team won 60 percent of the gold medals in the event. Another 4 years passed 2012 London Olympics came, A challenge in their own soil and the pressure to deliver results another time to prove themselves. They raised their own bar by setting 9 Olympic records and 7 world records.

In same 2012 Tour de France was won by Bradely Wiggins, the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France. Next year his teammate Chris froome won the race, then we went on to win again in 2015, 2016, 2017 and made the British team to win five Tour de France in six years.

During the ten-year span from 2007-2017, British cyclists won 178 world championship and sixty six Olympic/paralympic gold medals and captured 5 Tour de France and made one of the craziest runs in the cycling history. All these achievements started by making small marginal improvements. They went from 0 Tour de France for 110 years to winning 5 Tour de France in six years, Crazy isn’t?

Conclusion

A small improvement in everyday which will not be noticeable at the moment will become humongous thing in the longer run. There is no need to take resolution of changing ourselves upside down in every new year, doing tiny improvements in our work/life/sports or anything from today will make as a better person.

These things reminds a Tamil proverb “சிறுதுளி பெருவெள்ளம்”