Thus a little over halfway through these team previews we come to the big one I have been dreading. Surely the Quickstep preview was an early summit finish, AG2R and Bora-Hansgrohe were tricky lumpy transition stages, and the Jumbo-Visma and UAE previews were days in the high mountains. Yet this one, this team—despite not being the top team in 2020—their preview shall be the Queen stage of this chunk of early season preview episodes. The Ineos Grenadiers have an even more enormous abundance of riches than Jumbo or UAE, and it is only a glancing fact that the greatest Grand Tour rider of this generation, Chris Froome (Israel Startup Nation), has departed from the team. Froome’s departure seems little loss to these Grenadiers who are surely hungry once more to return to win the Tour de France they have straggle-held for the past decade…and they wish to win everything else as well! The headlines being churned out from the British rumor-mill is that the times are a’ changing at the Ineos Deathstar headquarters. Perhaps because their riches are so abundant, the headlines may come from a genuine place, and a new strategy must be sought. So here are what the headlines are appearing to say: Ineos want to race “like Brazil.” To the international audience, let me tell you, a statement like this would puzzle many Americans—in fact it might even attract some Americans to read the piece and not just draw their conclusions from the headlines as usual. But fear not! I was able to piece together the analogy like a first-grader putting two and two together to make four. This Brazil reference surely refers to the Brazilians’ favorite pastime: soccer, in American parlance. From the fringes of my history knowledge, I do believe—but please correct me if I am butchering this as only an American can—I learned the Brazilians were the ones to revolutionize this ball-kicking sport. They made it into a real contest of endurance. They made it into the so-called “Beautiful Sport.” They made it into a dynamic spectacle as all their players ran right and left, up and down the pitch with flowing and sweeping kicks and punts to their open teammates—no longer did men stay or shift in their zone like the wooden figures of a foosball table. Surely, if Dave Brailsford, the team boss of Ineos, is saying this is how Ineos plans to race this year: that is quite the radical change, and it shall need to be seen to be believed. Too long and too often we have seen the Sky/Ineos Deathstar squad relentlessly pacing in the high mountains at levels to where it would be suicide for rivals to go on the attack. It was a suffocating process, and made for bad viewing though it was O! so effective for this British team. But it seems what they propose to do—to ride “like Brazil”—is to throw off the shackles of not only the peloton-straggle-holding of the Grand Tours and stage races they wish to target, but of their own domestiques and leaders. I can only think of one reason why they would actually practically try to commit to this: they have too many big names. They have too many heavyweights to keep happy, they have more big names than big races to promise them leadership in. Thus with only fair or semi-coordinated collaboration they will come to the Grand Tours and even hilly Classics with two or three cards to play, and from there the road will decide which of their leader’s will get their full support later into the race. “Surely this is a bold strategy, Cotton.”
The rumor-mill’s wheel continued to turn in the tranquil English brook—it did not stop at just the Brazil rumors. It is said that the team’s heart, the only man left from its founding in 2010, Geraint Thomas will be the leader at the Tour. Geraint Thomas, the 2018 Tour winner, the 2019 Tour runner-up, and the 2020—sorry, let us not even speak of Thomas’ backwards and truncated 2020 season filled with frustration after frustration. At 34 years-old, surely he only has a few more years left, and the toilsome life of a cyclist surely niggles at the man. Yet for such reasons, surely Thomas wants even more to make these final years count, and only relax once the Final Curtain comes down. He has worn Yellow in Paris once before, but now he wishes to make another proper assault at it again, to join the even more elite club of riders that have worn Yellow in Paris twice. Surely it is a tall order, and with this “racing like Brazil” business, how much team support should he expect? It is said that Tao Geoghegan Hart, the 25-year-old who shocked the cycling world by winning this year’s October Giro d’Italia, will not return to defend his Giro title, but instead shall make his Tour de France debut. How much leash shall Geoghegan Hart have in this Ineos team that plans to “race like Brazil” and yet also have Thomas as the official leader? What about the leash on the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz? The winner of the 2019 Giro d’Italia, the runner-up in the 2020 Vuelta a Espana—bested only by Roglic (Jumbo-Visma)—surely at the Tour he deserves a “1b” leadership role, no? And forget not too Carapaz’s Tour de France last year where he came in undercook for he was preparing for the Giro, and yet still in the final week he was the ironman of the mountains laying down long range attack after long range attack—making the best of all of his chances. In addition to that, who else shall round out this squad—surely, at least two more leaders can be found to join this already juggernaut squad.
Whether he will join the Tour squad after remains to be seen, but the rumor-mill is saying young Colombian sensation Egan Bernal is finally going to make his Giro d’Italia debut. The winner of the 2019 Tour de France seemed to enter the 2020 Tour on good form to defend his title, but whether it was really top form enough remained to be seen, and the answer at best was inconclusive when he abandoned the Tour in the third week with a back injury that had supposedly been hindering his progress for the entire Tour. We shall see if he’s managed to fix such injuries over this off season, already he has unwound the legs in the Etoile de Besseges stage race. The Giro route has yet to be announced, but surely Italy’s long and high-altitude climbs will be to his liking. And surely the tifosi will love to see such a champion line up to win their Grand Tour. But who of this Ineos team shall line up along side him? I think the only assured bet is that new Italian pride-and-joy, Filipo Ganna…Top Ganna they call him! He utterly stomped his authority when he became the Time Trial Champion of the World. Surely, he is the top man for Gold in Tokyo this summer; surely he looks like the man who could win the next ten Time Trial World Titles. And last year at the Giro he won all three Time Trials and a road stage to boot in his Grand Tour debut. Already at Besseges he has notched two wins for this 2021 season. Surely, he shall be at the Giro this year to not only support Egan, but dazzle his homeland compatriots as well; and O! how we shall love to see it, surely none have looked as calm or superb on a TT Bike since Bradley Wiggins or Fabian Cancellara. But who else shall join Egan and Top Ganna at the Giro this year? Perhaps Rohan Dennis and Pavel Sivakov? Dennis was instrumental in Tao’s Giro win last year, and Sivakov is as much a talent as Tao…perhaps he even deserves a “1b” leadership status behind Egan.
The last rumor from the rumor-mill’s day of work says the new transfer Adam Yates shall be at the Vuelta, perhaps even the leader. He is quite the transfer splash, after a couple of lackluster years and stymied progression at Mitchelton-Scott, Adam jumped ship will his twin brother Simon Yates (Bike Exchange) stayed behind. The Yateses come from Lancashire, thus Adam injects back in some of the British identity that was originally the core of the team. But to come to the team, and before even racing he is assured a Vuelta leadership role? I am skeptical, I even question if I read the headlines rightly. That said, I think the transfer shall pay off for Adam, I think Ineos will get the most out of him where Mitchelton just alas! could not. Who shall join Yates for this Vuelta appointment? Perhaps it is too early to tell, for surely some of the top names will double back from the Giro or the Tour. One name yet unmentioned is the returning veteran, an Australian hero, Richie Porte—fresh off a Tour podium. He was such a weapon in Sky’s dominance a few years ago—low key one of the most reliable weeklong stage racers in the world. But in the Grand Tours he has had trouble stringing together a complete and error-free three weeks. Last year he did at the Tour, and the deal was already signed for his return before that. Shall he ride out his last remaining years as a super domestique, or shall Ineos give him one last shot in a leadership role? Maybe anything is possible if they plan to “race like Brazil.” What of the rest of the Vuelta team? Another new signing has already shown intent and desire to ride the Spanish Grand Tour: Tom Pidcock. Yes, the ascending cyclocross star has signed with Ineos, and they are even letting him weave in a mountain biking program with the Spring Classics in the lead up to Tokyo. He has studied Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Mathieu Van Der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) well, surely he wants to keep his range for he believes it shall reap him many successes across the calendar. What other rider has goals to someday win a Grand Tour, but also be the lightest rider to win Paris-Roubaix? Anyways, after Tokyo, Pidcock would like to make his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta. But to earn a Grand Tour spot on this team is already proving to be a tall order.
Deep into this preview, I still have yet to mention many names that must not go unnoticed. And yet, I struggle to elegantly weave them in from out on here. Dani Martinez has transferred over from EF, last year he took a stage of the Tour and won the Dauphine outright. Quite frankly, I do not understand why he came to this team where he will get far fewer chances to win, but these are the realities we are working with. Michal Kwiatkowski is back once again, what a rider and teammate he is; surely, I hope this he is let off the leash much more often in the coming Grand Tours and unleashed in the Spring Classics once more. Perhaps Ivan Sosa and Jhonatan Narvaez shall accompany Egan’s Giro foray, Narvaez won a stage of the race last year, and Sosa is supposed to get on swimmingly with Egan. What about newly imported Laurens De Plus from rival Jumbo-Visma? Surely he shall be a weapon in the mountains. What about Jonathan Castroviejo, Salvatore Puccio, Andrey Amador, Eddie Dunbar, and Sebastian Henao? All proven, reliable, and strong domestiques to round out multiple Grand Tour rosters. And what of their Spring Classics squad? Shall all be domestiquing for Pidcock already? Or shall Luke Rowe or Dylan Van Baarle or Owain Doull win something big before they work for the GC men on the flat stages of the Grand Tours? And what about the fallen-from-favor and now mysteriously elusive Gianni Moscon, where was he in 2020? Shall he return to top form in 2021?
Believe it or not, I did not end up mentioning everyone on the Ineos roster, but surely those named had need to be mentioned: all would be top stars on almost any other team. And at this point I cannot keep going on. Now I declare this labor is over. The Queen stage is done. The heavy lifting is behind us. Surely, with these previews, it is downhill from here.
Cycling Odysseys 