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Crashes, punctures and injuries ensured that nan 2026 Tour de France run was 1 of nan worst ever for nan beleaguered Netcompany Ineos team. From nan first shape on, erstwhile Dave Brailsford’s squad came adjacent to winning nan squad clip proceedings successful Montjuic, nan 2026 Tour was, successful nan words of their head of racing, Geraint Thomas, “tough going”.
“I’m happy to not beryllium racing immoderate more, because I suffered measurement excessively much,” said Thomas, who has taken Brailsford’s spot arsenic nan team’s frontman. “But it’s bully to still beryllium progressive successful nan nitty-gritty of it.”
It was a baptism of occurrence for Thomas successful his first Tour managing his riders, arsenic he had to hastily reimagine his lineup aft Oscar Onley, nan leader, was ruled retired by injury. That led to a accelerated realignment of nan team’s goals.
The optimism fuelled by Ineos’s acquisition of Onley, who vanished 4th wide successful 2025, and nan presence of a caller co-sponsor, Netcompany, has dissipated quickly. The Scot was injured successful June and forced to miss nan Tour, which scuppered Thomas’s best-laid plans.
“We were location aliases thereabouts,” Thomas said of his riders. “The squad clip proceedings everyone wanted to triumph and believed we could win. We were close, and we’ve been there, but conscionable not rather clicked.”
More galling, perhaps, were nan serial punctures and nan show of Remco Evenepoel, of nan Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team, riding to his best-ever Tour decorativeness successful 2nd place. The Olympic roadworthy title and time-trial champion, a friend of Thomas, had agelong been connected to a move to Brailsford’s squad but nan woody for him to subordinate fell through.
“With each nan changes going connected successful that team, location were delays and I couldn’t really hold immoderate more,” Evenepoel said past winter, but added: “It was adjacent to being done.”
Instead, Ineos opted to motion Onley, but his 2026 play has ne'er really sewage started. With nan Tour over, his adjacent extremity is apt to beryllium nan Vuelta a España.
Without Onley arsenic a podium contender, nan accent shifted and Egan Bernal, nan Tour victor successful 2019, was brought successful to boost nan team’s climbing skills. The French signing Kevin Vauquelin grounded to repetition nan successes of nan erstwhile summer, leaving Thomas and his riders targeting shape wins. But nan chances of achieving them were reduced by nan domination of Tadej Pogacar and his UAE Emirates team, allied to a tougher people and higher mean speeds.
Thomas admitted that location had been “a batch of learning connected nan job” for him. “It’s easy to talk astir [winning] stages but location are truthful fewer anyway, that it is tough. But it’s nan Tour, it’s not expected to beryllium easy.”
By nan clip Thomas and his riders sewage to nan ft of nan double-header of finishes connected Alpe d’Huez, their title was astir survival. “Without being defeatist, you’re not precisely racing ‘Pog’ connected days for illustration that,” nan 2018 Tour victor said. “Racing evolves and you request to accommodate pinch it. Everyone’s been looking for opportunities because they’re fewer and acold between.”
A decade ago, arsenic Team Sky, Chris Froome led nan squad to an emphatic wide triumph successful Paris, while British riders, spearheaded by Mark Cavendish, took 7 shape wins. That occurrence now seems a different era, pinch Froome retired, grounds climbing speeds being group connected a regular ground and Pogacar dominating almost each title he starts.
Of nan Slovene, Thomas agreed that challenging nan five-time victor was a daunting task. “I deliberation everyone, if they’re realistic, knew that he was connected different level. It was only Jonas [Vingegaard] who really believed he could do it.
“Racing is each mental, it’s each successful nan head. If you spell disconnected it, it’s truthful difficult to move it backmost on. As soon arsenic you’re not doing everything right, you suffer that mates of per cent. Everyone is truthful bully now that you can’t spend to do that.”
