Rivals miss a perfect chance to take down leading team
This was opportunity for competitors to win, yet Nicolas Portal was never worried, writes Tom Cary
Crisis? What crisis? After all the talk about how much weaker Team Ineos were this year, they only went and equalled their best-ever result at the Tour de France, locking out the top two spots on the podium in Paris for the first time since 2012. Dave Brailsford and the Ineos coaching team will feel hugely vindicated, as well they might.
The fact is, though, the race was a lot closer this year. Nicolas Portal, Team Ineos’s sporting director, can swear all he likes that the team “never felt in trouble”. Brailsford can likewise claim that Ineos’s lack of control in the mountains was mainly due to the fact that they had to race differently this year because Julian Alaphilippe held on to yellow for so much longer than
everyone expected. But they know, and their rivals know, that they were vulnerable.
There is no doubt the team were a bit light on climbers. Chris Froome’s injury in the build-up necessitated a late switch, Gianni Moscon coming in. But the Italian is a different sort of a rider and was not at his best anyway.
Neither was Michal Kwiatkowski. In the past we have seen the Pole almost ride to the summit finish with his team leader before swinging over. Here he went missing day after day.
Dylan van Baarle and Jonathan Castroviejo did the jobs they were brought to do, but neither is a climber. And Wout Poels took until late in the third week to find his legs. The net result was that Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal were often left isolated in the mountains.
Their rivals failed to capitalise. Julian Alaphilippe could not hang on, Thibaut Pinot injured himself just as it looked as if he might end France’s long wait for a Tour winner, while Steven Kruijskijk and Emmanuel Buchmann just did not have the zip to attack the Ineos pair.
“The riders are always open and honest and we never felt in trouble,” insisted Portal. “We were never out of control. We knew from six months ago that the third week would be crucial and hard. The riders were strong.”
It is true that Ineos finished strongest. But other teams will surely be asking themselves whether they could have done more. And whether Ineos’s relative weakness, at least compared with recent years, is part of a trend, or a one-off.
Brailsford suggested on the last rest day that the fact they were not riding on the front day after day, as we have become used to, was circumstantial; that it came down to strategy.
“It’s obviously a different race this year, with the way it has played out,” he argued. “And you ask yourself a question, why is that? Obviously it’s the first time Chris hasn’t raced in a number of years, although he didn’t win it last year. But I think that has maybe had an impact from the outset.
“And I think Alaphilippe’s gain in time and the aggressive style of riding. I think his presence – he’s in the race a lot longer than people thought he would be – and that has changed the way that all other teams are riding in response to that.
“That’s probably the biggest change and that has influenced other scenarios around it; a ripple effect.
“There’s a bit of a conundrum in trying to get rid of Alaphilippe on the one hand. But the normal GC guys are still thinking about how they race each other on the other. You’ve got this contrasting mix of goals, which is making the race very different.”
It may be true. It may be bluster. What is clear is that Ineos will learn
‘We thought we’d mix it up a bit and keep it exciting – and then just win it at the end’
from this experience. Already they are shoring up their defences, signing the Giro d’Italia champion Richard Carapaz. Froome is still to return.
In the end, Ineos had the last laugh. “We thought we’d mix it up a bit and keep it exciting – and then just win it at the end!” Portal joked. For their rivals, it is no laughing matter.