Last year during the Volta and Catalunya, where Ineos Grenadiers scooped the top three spots overall and spent much of their time in the mountains relentlessly wiping out the opposition with a steady pace at the front of the bunch, 2018 Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas found himself felt a moment of nostalgia.
“It was a great team performance,” he said after the British team rolled back the years to practice their Grand Tour mountains strategy from 2012-2019 in the Pyrenees of Catalunya for a second straight day.
Thomas added, “There’s loads been said about how we’re racing different and this and that, but it’s a bit of an old school and just stamp our authority on the race. “
As it happens four of the riders present in that are Vol Volta and Catalunya – Thomas, Adam Yates, Jonathan Castroviejo and Luke Rowe – who will also be racing the Tour de France this year. These days though, that kind of strategy is no longer automatically valid for Ineos Grenadiers in July.
Egan Bernal returns in 2019. After 2020, Ineos Grenadiers were superseded by top Slovenian duo Tadej Pogačar and Primož Roglič, and if Richard Carapaz secured a respectable third place in the 2021 Tour, Jonas Vingegaard, for that matter
Ineos Grenadiers had a clear recognition of the changing guard in the Ineos Grenadiers. It’s fair to say that in 2021, sometimes that happened, sometimes it didn’t.
Certainly when Ineos Grenadiers tended to revert to previous type in the Tour de France and even when they were running a third, it caused a fair amount of flak be directed the British team’s way.
So what to do this summer? From Ineos Grenadiers new lead Tour de France directeur sportif Steve Cummings tells Cyclingnews, the rewiring of the squad’s strategies in all kinds of races has continued apace over the last few months. And after last July they appeared to be unable to fully relinquish the racing strategies of old, that new approach will include the Tour.
“Any culture takes a little while to evolve, and they [Ineos Grenadiers] “Cummings, who joined the team in 2021, says.
“But now, not in the Tour but in other races, we can race in other ways. the day, the strategy, the tactics are defined by the riders’ legs and how they’re going, not by me. “
Part of Cummings’ new position as lead Tour de France director, he says, is “challenging the [previous] thinking, handling the evolution of the team culture if you like, where you don’t have the favored race, you have less responsibility to control the race and you have more opportunities.
“And that’s it, you’ve got to see that [lesser responsibility] for the opportunity. “
Grabbing opportunities is something that Cummings excelled at in the second half of his career when he became known as one of the top breakaways in the sport. By chance, it happens this two finishes where he won stages himself.
In the second week the Tour reaches Mende airfield, the scene of Cummings’ memorable summit victory against Thibaut Pinot and Romain Badet in 2015. “I have been back since then,” Cummings says, “so it will be a bit strange, but good. “
In the third, it passes through the Lac de Payolle where six years ago Cummings won after breaking away alone over the Aspin – this year the first Pyrenean ascent of the stage, as it was in 2016.
Cummings have never been exceptionally talented at one particular area, but with a well-earned reputation for hard work and hard thinking across the board. So Ineos Grenadiers will once again bring to the Tour.
“I think we need to win the GC, then we need to win multiple stages with the talent we have,” he argues.
“To put it in perspective, probably the world would say, Roglič and Pogačar are the favors, and looking at the results of the past two years, I would agree.
“But [for the GC] we do have Dani [Martínez]who’s been really, really good and he’s just won the Itzulia this year, we have G, who just won the Tour Suisse, and also we have Adam.
“Adam might not have the results in 2022, but if you were to analyze his performances, they’ve been really good and he’s gotten sick at difficult times. So I’m pretty optimistic.”
Stage wins? The overall? booth?
When Cummings says Ineos Grenadiers are after stage wins, this isn’t just a general observation. Bringing Filippo Ganna to make his Tour debut this Friday is a statement of intent in anyone’s book. Or as Cummings puts it, “we want to make waves right from the start.”
“He’s definitely one of the favors, he’s the World Champion in that discipline, but I don’t want to add extra pressure to what he’s already feeling. Wout van Aert [Jumbo-Visma] is also very strong and there will be the childhood of other contenders.
“But if Filippo concentrates on process and performance like he’s done so many times before, then he should get the optimal result.”
Ineos Grenadiers in their strategy for success this July is their other Tour debutant, Tom Pidcock.
“He’s there to learn, experience his first Tour and explore his potential while seeing first-hand how the greatest riders in the world race in the biggest event in the world,” Cummings says.
“But apart from learning, he’s got a role as a free electron, to take his chances where he can. Obviously we want to win, but at certain points, [a rider like Pidcock] will give us extra options to fight with as well. “
The only caveat he adds is that Pidcock has yet to find out whether the COVID has a long-term effect.
In the center of it all, though, Ineos Grenadiers’ protected riders and last year the team went with four potential leaders – Tao Geoghegan Hart, Richie Porte, Thomas, and Carapaz – this year there are three: Thomas, Martínez, and Yates.
Which begs the question, is there really that much of a difference to 2021?
“This Kab strategy a bit clearer,” Cummings says. “I’m not sure if the strategy doesn’t define the race, it’s riders’ legs that define what happens, and last year they had some bad luck … crash.
“This year it’s been difficult because a rider like Egan [Bernal] is irreplaceable. But like I said, Dani’s won Itzulia, G’s won Suisse and we’ve got a good momentum going into the Tour. “Everyone’s clearly got to help each other through the chaotic stages of the first week, and then after that, but we’ll know what we’re doing in the rest of the race.”
As for the multi-leader approach, Cummings says, “I think we’ve adopted this strategy all season with two leaders, but it’s not like it’s black and white.”
“The challenges are more about using the team in the right way, and people also understanding what each rider delivers on the road.”
Although Adam Yates has often been underestimated as the time of travel, on paper, the first week of the Tour looks set to be one in which Thomas could shine, Cummings says.
It’s not just the Welshman’s track record against the clock, which includes winning the Tour de France tour in Dusseldorf in 2017 or even his recent success in the Tour de Suisse where Thomas claimed the overall victory thanks to the final test against the clock.
Thomas’ track record on the cobbles, both inside and out the Tour de France is also rock-solid. Even way back in 2010, he provided a rare moment of success for the British team when he placed second on the Roubaix stage and briefly took the best young rider’s jersey. So stage 5 looks to be up his street as well.
What price domination?
Since then, Thomas – the only rider to remain on Sky’s roster for all 12 years – has witnessed extraordinary moments of success in the Tour for the team, including his own. Of Cummings agrees, that domination comes with a price tag, because it usually takes a long time for the Ineos Grenadiers.
“Most teams are judged by that, aren’t they?” he asks rhetorically. “It’s the world’s largest annual sporting event. done so well in the past. “
“The record is the record, and we shouldn’t carry it around like luggage. We should embrace it because of the management, the staff, they’ve been through that before. ‘re doing. “
Cummings don’t believe though, that Ineos Grenadiers should try and learn from their own past when they were dominating the Tour to work out how to unseat the current top favorites. That, he says, would take them in the wrong direction in terms of attitude towards the Tour.
“We don’t want to think about the opposition that much, we want to think more about how we want the race to go,” he says, in a straight line out of his own textbook of unwritten rules as a breakaway specialist.
“But in any case, if you’re not leading the race – and that attitude gives you more opportunities, for sure.”
Cummings says with a chuckle, “I sleep less, for one thing.”
Speaking more seriously, he adds, that his job is now, “to articulate the team’s tactics and strategies each day, make sure everyone understands their roles, that we’re racing optimistically, that the guys are motivated.
“We want to deliver, ultimately, the optimal performance, and if we do that, then the talent in the team is more than capable of winning, full stop.
“Finally if that’s the GC we’ll see, but with the talent we’ve got, there’s always going to be a GC component in the team. for that. “