Brailsford defends selections after Wiggins’ sacking swipe
Ineos chief insists he was right to axe Thomas and Froome Flagging Bernal may drop out and target Vuelta a Espana
Tour de France
Sir Dave Brailsford has defended Ineos’s tactics and team selection for the Tour de France after Sir Bradley Wiggins claimed he would have been fired this year had he been a football manager.
Two days after Egan Bernal’s dramatic collapse on the Grand Colombier ended the team’s chances of winning an eighth yellow jersey in nine years, Ineos restored a measure of pride yesterday. Three of their riders made the day’s breakaway on stage 16 from La Tour-duPin to Villard-de-lans, with Richard Carapaz eventually finishing second behind stage winner Lennard Kamna (Bora-hansgrohe) with Pavel Sivakov coming home fourth.
However, with Bernal rolling home in the grupetto, amid whispers that he might abandon due to a niggling back issue, the shock at how quickly things have imploded for the peloton’s erstwhile superteam are still reverberating.
Wiggins had told Eurosport on Monday that he was shocked by Ineos’s performance at this Tour. “I don’t know what’s happened there,” said the 40-year-old, who won the first of what was then Team Sky’s titles back in 2012. “For a team that’s performance-orientated and such planning that goes into their seasons, it’s just not worked for them for one reason or another. Had it been football, Dave would be out. That’s how football works.”
Brailsford, speaking for the first time since Sunday, insisted the team did “not gamble” by declining to pick Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome.
And he added that while he and the rest of the staff were clearly under pressure, with Ineos enjoying the biggest budget in professional cycling at an estimated £40 million, he was confident owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe understood that you cannot win every year.
On the selection controversy, specifically the decision to leave out former winners Froome and Thomas – the latter of whom this week finished second at TirrenoAdriatico – and instead bring in Carapaz, Brailsford was unequivocal, saying: “I’d never judge myself on somebody else’s narrative. I don’t gamble. People are entitled to their opinions, but I didn’t gamble with selection. They were big decisions. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. I’m sure that people have a lot to say but they’re not privy to the facts that I’ve got.
“I’m actually very pleased to see Geraint doing so well at TirrenoAdriatico and looking so good going into the Giro. It was a good decision [on Thomas], regardless of what anybody else may think. And Chris is where Chris is at. He’s just not ready yet for this level of competition and I think he knows that.”
Bernal was clearly in some discomfort on the bike yesterday. And with the Queen stage of the race to come today – a monster of a day featuring two hors categorie climbs – there is speculation he could be pulled for a possible tilt at the Vuelta a Espana alongside Froome.
“Clearly, there was something wrong because that wasn’t his normal performance on Sunday,” Brailsford said of the Colombian’s collapse. “But he’s proud, it’s not in his nature to quit.”
Brailsford said the team needed to go back to the drawing board. “We’ve changed structure, changed owners, and you need to know you’ve got that stability to build again,” he said. Asked whether he had spoken to Ratcliffe since Sunday, Brailsford replied: “He knows it’s part of sport. Look, he won it last year at the first time of asking, so I think he understands.”
Today’s stage from Grenoble to Meribel has been eagerly anticipated. The final climb – featuring ramps of 24 per cent, and with a summit altitude of 2,304m – is effectively a ski run that has been paved over especially for this race.
But similarly, there is a chance for those brave enough, the likes of Adam Yates (Mitchelton-scott), Rigoberto Uran ( EF Pro Cycling), Richie Porte ( Trek-segafredo), Miguel Angel Lopez ( Astana) and Mikel Landa ( Bahrain-mclaren) – all within two minutes or so of the leading Slovenians – to try a Hail Mary.