The construction and collapse of clean cycling discourse : the case of Sir David Brailsford

When Team Sky emerged on the world cycling scene, it proclaimed itself a crusader for clean competition. Team manager David Brailsford was the embodiment of this new ethos, which rested on two concepts: the CORE Principle and the Marginal Gains Theory. However, in 2016 allegations of rule bending in Team Sky emerged in the press and Brailsford was called to testify before a Parliamentary Committee on doping in sport. It was widely agreed that his testimony undermined the 'clean cycling' image constructed during his management. This paper offers a comparative, qualitative discourse analysis of an interview with Brailsford from the heyday of his 'clean discourse' and his testimony before the Committee. From the perspective of Jørgensen and Isaksson's Ethos model, a CADS approach is followed involving Hallidayan transitivity analysis to understand, first, how Brailsford's clean discourse ethos was constructed, second, why it failed him during his witness session, and how he tried to mitigate this by foregrounding alternative ethos qualities in his statements to the Committee.