Ineos Grenadiers put faith in numbers at Tour de France as Pogacar threat looms
Although 184 riders will roll away from the Tour de France start line in Brest on Saturday, there are in fact fewer than a dozen contenders for victory in Paris on 18 July. The problem for most, though, is they do not ride for Ineos Grenadiers.
After a poor Tour in 2020, the British team again look like holding all the cards, with four riders – Geraint Thomas, Richard Carapaz, Tao Geoghegan Hart and Richie Porte – all capable of playing a leadership role. The problem for Ineos Grenadiers, however, is that they have not hired the most exciting young rider in the sport.
The threat posed by the prodigious 22-year-old reigning champion Tadej Pogacar to Ineos’s plans is huge, something that Porte, third overall behind the Slovenian in 2020, reluctantly acknowledged. “With the team that we have, he cannot follow all of us,” the Australian said. “There should be four of us up there, hopefully, when we hit the mountains. We have such a strong team. That’s our trump card.”
But uncertainties still remain over the British team’s leadership. One by one, Ineos Grenadiers wheeled out their quartet of big guns for their virtual press conference, with Thomas, Carapaz, Porte and Hart appearing in that sequence. Asked if the running order had symbolic meaning, Thomas, champion in 2018 and runner-up in 2019, answered with a deadpan: “Yes.”
Asked a similar question, Carapaz bluntly stated: “The two main leaders are Geraint and me.”
But of the four, Hart was the most outspoken when asked about the team’s hierarchy. “Is the last one the best, or the first one the best?” the Tour debutant responded. “When you leave the room who are you going to be thinking about? The last person you spoke to?”
Meanwhile Michael Matthews, one of Mark Cavendish’s old sparring partners in the Tour’s sprints, was among those celebrating the return of the 30time stage winner to the Tour peloton. “He’s like a new-born,” Matthews said of the 36-year-old, after catching up with Cavendish at the airport before flying to Brittany.
“He’s full of energy. I hadn’t seen him like that for a while. For a guy to be that excited about coming back to the Tour is great for the sport.”