The business behind pelotons & pars

Businessmen wishing to learn about leading from the front could do worse than study the world's major sporting events such as the Vuelta a España cycling race and the Dubai Desert Classic golf tournament.

Insights into the process emerge if we explore such questions as: "How is it the main group always catches the breakaway leader?"

The Vuelta a España – Tour of Spain – is a gruelling three-week stage event, and the 64th running came to a climax last Sunday as Alejandro Valverde sealed overall victory.

Sometimes the front-runner manages to escape and win, but far more often the main group – the peloton – overtakes the breakaway leader.

The peloton is like some monstrous cycling centipede that hurtles along in a massive slipstream. The arrangement conserves energy for individuals – energy which has to be sacrificed by anyone who moves ahead and becomes a breakaway leader. Such a strategy requires tactics and teamwork.

As we watch, it looks as if the one-time leader is caught and somehow then trick-cycled backwards through the swarming riders making up the peloton behind him.

Journalist Paul Hochman, of the New York Times' Sunday Magazine, wrote a brilliant description of how it all works: "Nothing in [American] sports resembles the bizarre dynamic of the cycling peloton, partly because a stage race is less a sporting event than a commodities exchange on wheels.

"What appears to be a random mass of bicycles is really an orderly, complex web of shifting alliances, crossed with brutal competition, designed to keep or acquire the market's most valued currency: Energy."

Amassing it, conserving it and ensuring that as little as possible drains away is the only way for a racer to survive the brutal physical strain of the Vuelta, the metabolic equivalent of running 21 marathons in 23 days. Bikers save energy by riding together. Those who save the most energy can "buy" various goods – international glory, TV time and a bright yellow jersey.

But here's the key: To thrive in the angry little swarm that is the peloton, enemies often have to stick together and make deals with one another. Co-operation across enemy lines is the centrepiece of a winning game plan. It is a weird concept to those accustomed to the zero-sum, us-them finality of the winning penalty kick or the walk-off home run. Why play nice with someone who might eventually beat you? Racers in the peloton are not pals – they are enemies without options.

To which it might be worth mentioning that not winning a stage may not be the same as losing one. The gallant front-runners are still doing a good job for their sponsors, whose branding they are sustaining. The breakaway will have been worth a lot of prime-time ads.

And so that brings us to golf – one of the most reward-reaping sports in advertising. Is there a peloton principle at work? Not quite. Despite his loss to YE Yang at last month's PGA Championships, Tiger Woods continues to have a fearsome reputation for winning once he hits the top of the leaderboard; his ruthless display at this month's BMW Championship reinforced the point.

However there is a general principle that is more statistical than psychological at play. It explains why a relatively lowly ranked golfer can leap into a substantial lead after the first round of a tournament – world No72 Steve Marino posted the best opening score at the BMW – and why they are almost always caught by many of the pursuing group.

Simple stats can test whether there is a random deviation around an average score. Some high and some low scores are the inevitable result of the expected distribution of scores. The stats can reveal if variations are due to a few exceptionally good – and exceptionally bad – players, or maybe no more than a statistical effect.

When more data becomes available in the next round there will be similar expected distributions of scores. For the front-runner, there is only one direction to move: Down. The result is that the one-time leader appears to be going backwards – just like the would-be leader in the Vuelta.

Tiger, and Tiger alone for much of the past decade, plays golf in a way that can't be explained as a random distribution of scores. If Tiger appears in the lead of the greatest of modern players, the rest of the competition, and almost all watchers of the event reach the same conclusion: Tiger is on his way to another win. But that is simply because for the best part of Tiger's career, his scores have been those of a statistical outlier.

We may not have solved any problems, but what we have proven is that business and sport can learn from each other, and if you train hard enough you can be an exception to the rule.


- Tudor Rickards is a Professor of Creativity and Organisational Change at Manchester Business School, England.

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