The Ineos Grenadiers finished the 2023 season as the third-best team in the world behind Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates but does the result belie the team’s trajectory? Former rider Ian Boswell suggested to The Cycling Podcast that Ineos have lost direction, calling their lack of Grand Tour, Classics or sprint prospects “worrisome”.
Earlier this month the team lost its Deputy Team Principal/General Manager Rod Ellingworth, along with sports director Roger Hammond and assistant director Matteo Tosatto, dealing a major blow to the British team that former Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas called “gutting”.
Ellingworth was one of the architects of the former Team Sky outfit’s success, having acted as performance manager for Tour de France champions Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, but left the team after the 2019 season for Bahrain Victorious. He rejoined Ineos for 2021, the year of the team’s last Grand Tour victory with Egan Bernal at the Giro d’Italia, taking over from long-time manager David Brailsford, who became Director of Sports for the larger Ineos sports organisation.
In last week’s episode, Boswell, who raced for Team Sky from 2013-2017, suggested that Ellingworth may have not been given full autonomy in making decisions about the team.
“Rod was at Team Sky in the absolute heyday … they were winning every race, Tour after Tour, they showed up with the best team and they came away with success. How difficult is that now for Rod to have been in that environment, to know what that success looks like, and to now be in a position to make those decisions to continue on that legacy but not be able to,” Boswell said.
“If people above him are making choices that he doesn’t agree with, whether it’s signing riders [or] selecting teams; if he’s been maybe overshadowed by Brailsford, who’s not there on a day-to-day operation, but yet still making decisions; or whether it’s [Ineos owner Jim] Radcliffe or other people within the organisation.
“I can see how that can be frustrating because he knows what that team was like. He knows what the culture and the environment were like when the team was successful, and he knows how to rebuild that. But he’s maybe not given the keys to actually do what he wants to do.”
Ineos Grenadiers have indeed had a significant talent drain in recent years – former Grand Tour winners Adam Yates, Richard Carapaz and Tao Geoghegan Hart left for other teams, leaving Ineos with Geraint Thomas as their sole GC prospect after Egan…
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