Before UAE Team Emirates-XRG were recording unprecedented numbers of wins, Team Sky were the team that everyone saw as having an iron grip on the sport of cycling. The truth is, they didn’t have anywhere near as much dominance as a team like UAE – their success centred mainly on the Tour de France – but in a time where different riders winning the biggest races was still normal, it felt like a tight hold.
After Chris Froome suffered career-altering injuries in a crash and COVID-19 permanently shifted the dynamics in pro cycling, that status changed, with Sky transitioning into Ineos Grenadiers, and other teams overtaking them as the sport’s dominant forces. Geraint Thomas got older, Egan Bernal had his own struggles and didn’t quite emerge as the Grand Tour successor Ineos hoped him to be after his major crash in 2022, and they lost out on signing any rider with the moniker of ‘the next Tadej Pogačar’.
Of course, we can and naturally will hold them to higher standards because of what they once achieved, but we should also be fair – it wasn’t truly a riches to rags story.
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