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What does Ineos Grenadiers do at the Tour de France in 2023 and beyond? Geraint Thomas won’t keep saving its grand tour blushes for long.
Once the three-week powerhouse that steamrollered seven Tours de France in eight years, the Ineos Grenadiers of 2023 now hasn’t won the maillot jaune since 2019.
And worse still, it doesn’t look like one of its riders will follow the wheel tracks of Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, “G” Thomas, and Egan Bernal anytime soon.
Jumbo-Visma has taken Team Sky’s crown as the kings of marginal gains, Tadej Pogačar is the new reference point, and Remco Evenepoel might only just be getting started.
And defending yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard? He just rode the Critérium du Daupiné peloton out of his wheel while breathing through his nose.
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Meanwhile, Dave Brailsford’s Brit-based crew has questions hanging over all its established winners and doesn’t have one clear grand tour contender for the near future.
For Ineos Grenadiers, Tour de France times have definitely changed.
Outsiders at the race it once ruled
Thomas and Bernal are the team’s last Tour de France winners – who will be next? (Photo: Gruber Images / Velo)
Ineos Grenadiers will line out next month for what’s poised to be its most off-radar Tour campaign in a decade.
Thomas and Tao Geoghegan Hart took the GC “A-Team” to the Giro d’Italia. Geoghegan Hart is now healing a smashed-up hip, and Thomas is seeing off a hangover after his extra-near miss at the corsa rosa.
Bernal will likely see his first Tour de France in three years this summer. He recently showed some of his best form since his devastating crash and is the team’s most recent grand tour winner, but nobody will be expecting him to get even close to a leader’s jersey in the next six weeks.
Also read: Bernal’s Tour de France remains in balance
In the absence of the team’s proven champions, Ineos Grenadiers will be calling on the relatively raw Dani Martínez and Carlos Rodríguez.
The Spanish-speaking duo have both shown stacks of promise, but for now at least, they’re likely to be gobbled up like tapas by galácticos like Pogačar and Vingegaard.
And Tom Pidcock?
Tongues wag about his GC caliber, and the potential is sure in his legs. But just because he ascended to the history books last year at Alpe d’Huez, it certainly doesn’t mean he’ll be converted to a grand tour contender at the first time of trying this summer.
And besides, Pidcock’s medium-term goals rest on fat tires and Olympic golds, not 28mms and the maillot jaune.
Stick or twist?
Geraint Thomas is the team’s one GC rider that consistently delivers. (Photo: Gruber Images / Velo)
The team’s Tour de France woes might extend further than the next six weeks.
Thomas remains uncertain about his future. The 37-year-old indicated he’ll race at least one more year but that doesn’t mean he hopes to return to the French race he won in 2018.
A summer free of injury and consistent racing could see Bernal back toward winning ways by 2024, yet that’s also an unknown. And in that time, Vingegaard, Pogačar, and Evenepoel might have moved on further.
Look to the next tier of the team’s GC talent, and the situation is just as hazy.
A stack of the squad’s more established three-week racers ride toward the ends of their contracts this winter and might not see a 2024-edition Ineos jersey.
There’s a rumor that Geoghegan Hart, who looked by far “best of the rest” at the Giro last month, might be moving to Lidl-Trek in 2024. Movistar has eyes on Rodríguez, and Bora-Hansgrohe is reported to be making moves for Martínez.
If that rumor mill spins true, Ineos Grenadiers might need to play the long game in its quest for yellow.
Pidcock has got Olympic MTB at the top of his bucket list for 2024 and asserted already that a second gold medal is his top priority.
Thymen Arensman, Magnus Sheffield, Luke Plapp, Ben Tulett, and Leo Hayter all have the making of GC racers, and Arensman is already close to the complete package. The team still needs to test the Dutch talent with grand tour leadership, and it’s not likely to do that in the madness of next summer’s Tour.
Ineos Grenadiers needs a rider with proven podium potential if it wants grand tour victory in the medium term.
Thomas provides them with that now but time is not on his side, while Bernal’s future hopes might not become clear until he’s got a grand tour in his legs.
The team’s oncoming GC conundrum is ironic given it let two of its most consistent GC racers go when Adam Yates and Richard Carapaz signed out this winter.
What Ineos Grenadiers does in this summer’s transfer window merry-go-round might say a lot.
Wait for the new breed of Arensman, Pidcock, and Plapp, or splash some cash on a more immediate fix? The market might make that decision for them.
Hour records, cyclocross titles, MTB medals … but ‘the Tour is the Tour’
Tom Pidcock has the potential to be the team’s next GC ace – if he chooses to pedal that direction. (Photo: Gruber Images / Velo)
Jim Ratcliffe’s grand tour slaying squad spread its wings far since Bernal won its last Tour de France in 2019.
Its riders won Paris-Roubaix, MTB olympic gold medals, and cyclocross world titles. It signed Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and set a new world hour record. It’s got a stable of young thoroughbreds-to-be and is still getting a foot on grand tour podiums.
Yet the rest of the peloton flew even further, especially in the big hype, big-money world of grand tour racing.
Jumbo-Visma and UAE Emirates have a roster of GC talent so deep it doesn’t know what to do with it. Quick-Step and Bora-Hansgrohe pivoted to grand tour racing and truly entered the frame with Evenepoel and Jai Hindley’s recent victories.
For Ineos Grenadiers and its multi-megamillion sponsors, the Tour de France is the race that counts, despite its modern image as an all-attacking, unpredictable multi-format force. The Tour is the race Netflix makes shows about and gets airtime in even the briefest news broadcasts.
This year’s lap of France could be a tough race for Ineos Grenadiers and its underpowered mountain train.
And next year’s could be the same if Thomas calls time on his Tour de France career and Bernal suffers more setbacks.
For sure, Ineos Grenadiers has the potential to win many Tours de France with its current roster.
But it might be a very long wait.
And with sporting stakes in soccer, sailing, motorsport, and rugby, Ratcliffe’s cycling stoke might not last that long.