New Ineos Grenadiers Director of Racing Geraint Thomas has confirmed that the team’s big goal for the years to come is to add an eighth Tour de France win to the seven the squad already accumulated between 2012 and 2019.
After racing with Team Sky and then Ineos Grenadiers for 16 seasons, it was announced on Thursday morning that retiring rider would be taking up a new position within the team, Director of Racing.
At the same time, as he put it, “pushing the staff in the same way as we push the riders” is also key to a successful team.
“There’s always competition for places and it’s kind of the same for staff, how are they impacting performance this week…it’s not just going through the motions,” said Thomas.
The 2018 Tour de France winner confirmed that Ineos’ main objective from hereon was returning to the top spot on the Champs Elysées. As he put it, in his recent discussions with Dave Brailsford, “it’s no secret, the big goal is winning the Tour again.
As for the question of beating the seemingly invincible Pogačar, Thomas reasoned, “Pog’s not going to be around forever. In two three years time we want to be in a super-strong position where we can challenge for it, Pog or not.”
Thomas described himself as initially having an observing role, working closely with Brailsford to get a better understanding of the team’s internal operations at a staff level. Both he and Rowe mentioned the example of former Sky trainer Tim Kerrison – who apparently spent the best part of a year mostly observing the team – as one Thomas could follow on his own learning curve.
“So I’ve got a lot of ideas but Dave keeps telling me to slow down, we’re doing this first. So it’s just learning off Dave and understanding their ways of doing things, observing management calls… It’s not like they do everything right, but that’s life.”