A different kind of podium finish for Ineos Grenadiers. A year ago, Richard Carapaz’s third place at the Tour de France was couched as a failure, not least because the Ecuadorian’s performance was the lone high note in a dissonant collective display from the squad with the biggest budget in cycling.
Twelve months on, the mood music around Geraint Thomas’ impending podium finish – again behind the unassailable duo of Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar – is rather more harmonious.
Pre-race expectations were undoubtedly more muted, of course, due to the absence of the injured Egan Bernal, the only Ineos rider who might realistically have carried a tune with Vingegaard and Pogacar at this Tour, but the squad’s performance was also more coherent than last year’s effort. Tom Pidcock’s victory at Alpe d’Huez, too, offered an optimistic note for the future.
At the start of the season, Thomas was behind Daniel Martínez and Adam Yates in the team’s Tour depth chart, but victory at the Tour de Suisse in June bumped him up the hierarchy. The 36-year-old rode consistently across the three weeks of the Tour, and although he enters the final weekend exactly eight minutes off Vingegaard’s yellow jersey, manager Rod Ellingworth suggested his athletic performance here was better than the one that brought him to Paris in yellow in 2018.
“I think the team performance this year has been very good, and it’s been great to see Geraint do what he’s doing,” Ellingworth told Cyclingnews. “He’s got all three places on the podium now, which is something, and he’s proved that he’s capable of improving. It’s not like he’s the same as when he won, he’s actually getting better.”
Four years ago, Thomas wore yellow for ten days and won back-to-back stages at La Rosière and Alpe d’Huez in a Tour that was raced almost exclusively on his and Team Sky’s terms. Four years on, the lie of the land has changed utterly. Ineos are no longer the point of reference for the entire peloton, and the racing is no longer as controlled as it was in 2018.
Over the past three weeks, Vingegaard and Pogacar have routinely travelled to places that their rivals could not reach, but Thomas limited the damage better than anyone else, even when forced to give lone chase in the mountains.
“When he won in 2018, it was a very well put together race for Geraint,” Ellingworth said. “But, across the board, he’s improved across every area since then, and it was a near-on perfect performance from Geraint here. Every…
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