“You’ve got to listen to these young people,” says Rod Ellingworth.

“A lot of experienced people have been through life but they’re not perhaps listening to these young people enough. You’ve got to listen to their ambitions and, when they say things, there’s a lot in there. And if you ask the right questions, open questions, getting into the guts of it really, really getting under their skin about how they want to go from A to B, I think you can learn a lot from people.

“Try to follow people’s ambitions and dreams. And as long as you’ve got the programme and the space, you can keep working with people, because the talent will come through.”

Ellingworth is a former cyclist who now oversees talent identification at the Ineos Grenadiers and, in this latest edition of the Science in Sport Industry Insight series, he sits down in conversation with his former colleague James Morton, the Director of Performance Solutions at SiS.

Both men spent five year working together under Ineos’ previous guise, Team Sky, and here they delve into advice for talent spotters as well as:

• Why it is important to ‘throw grenades’ at young riders when it comes to developing their resilience [14:00];
• Geraint Thomas’ champion mindset [16:00];
• The importance of creating programmes that excite youngsters [18:30];
• Misconceptions around fuelling and weight loss [26:30]

James Morton LinkedIn | Twitter

John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn

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