Ed Clancy OBE is the most successful Team Pursuit cyclist in history, having won gold with Team GB at three successive Olympics. 2021 marked his sixteenth year as part of Team GB as he competed in his fourth Olympic games in Tokyo.
In the London 2012 Olympics, Ed also competed in the Omnium, claiming a bronze medal. In total, Ed is a five-time Team Pursuit World Champion (in 2005, 2007, 2008, 2012 and 2018) and four-time European Champion (in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014); he has also won World (2010) and European (2011) titles in the omnium.
As a professional road cyclist, Ed won the first stage of the 2005 Tour of Berlin, UK National Criterium Championship (2010) the Herald Sun Prologue (2018). He notably was a rider for JLT-Condor from 2011 to 2018.
Ed Clancy was born in Barnsley in 1985 and grew up in Yorkshire. From an early age he would spend hours on his bike and loved cycling, but he wouldn’t compete seriously until he was scouted by British Cycling at the age of 16. He won his first gold medal with the Great Britain Team Pursuit squad at the 2005 World Championship, aged 20.
In September 2015, Ed was forced to undergo emergency back surgery after injuring his disc at a training camp. Although he went on to win an historic third gold medal in Team Pursuit at the Rio Olympics in 2016, Ed describes his injury as something he would have to work to overcome constantly from that point on.
Ed retired from Team GB in August 2021, whilst at the Tokyo Olympics. His last professional race was in December 2021 as part of the inaugural Track Champions League competition in London.
Since retirement, Ed has gone on to work part-time for British Cycling’s Research and Innovation Team and consults for British Triathlon. In January 2022, he launched performance consultancy business Pursuit Line with his long-term mentor and business partner, Phil Kelly. In 2020, along with former road teammate Graham Briggs, he launched the Clancy Briggs Cycling Academy, aiming to get children learning and enjoying riding a bike.
Along with his exceptional experience in sport and business, Ed Clancy’s approachable and affable personality have made him a popular public and motivational speaker for a wide variety of audiences.
Ed is a knowledgeable and engaging presenter, referencing his learnings from nearly 20years spent in elite sport alongside some of the greatest athletes and coaches of all time. His enlightened yet down-to-earth talks leave listeners inspired, informed, and motivated.
Looking at cultivating, nurturing, and breeding a culture of high performance; this includes examining my 5 principles for high performance. Creating common purposes and goals, encouraging teamwork and individual excellence, fostering an agile and effective environment, and identifying areas for growth and evolution.
Sir Dave Brailsford (Performance Director of British Cycling during the ‘golden era’) famously used marginal gains to create the ‘gold medal factory’. I look at the idea of adopting marginal gains as an approach to making big progressions towards a big target. This includes breaking down a challenge into small, component parts to maximise your chances of success. Together, we can identify attainable, daily means of achievement to help reach your target.
Teamwork starts with self-awareness and having an acute sense of your impact on those working with and around you. It’s also important to have a clear awareness and understanding of your team-members; what makes them thrive, what are their struggles.
As a seasoned member of an elite sports team, I have had some very accomplished former teammates and coaches, all of whom had different strengths and weaknesses. I take a unique look at my time working with some of the sports’ greats to demonstrate how you can harvest a great team culture in which high performance can thrive
Sport is notorious for epic highs and crashing lows; having and maintaining a healthy and balanced perspective can bolster your recovery for the inevitable times that things don’t go according to plan. By defining what is in and out of your control, you can start to ascertain exactly what it is that will give you the best chance of success and recovery. Acknowledging that there are simply things that you cannot control can help you to shape a situation more than you realise.
Leadership is about example. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some of the best coaches, managers, and directors over time. The best leaders instigate open and levelled conversations, rather than asserting dominance; they aim to empower their workers to be interdependent – in control of their own destiny whilst accessing all the support on offer to them.
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