Ineos Grenadiers have had a myriad of problems in recent years. Each of them is well-documented, all have been the subject of intense debate from all quarters, and many of them still exist – not least the absence of a genuine Grand Tour contender. But while the eternal transition continues, and the talk of finding a new identity while simultaneously trying to recover their old one fails to relent, a new Ineos is actually emerging. One they had promised would.
It’s not an Ineos that wins three-week races – heck, it’s not even an Ineos that even comes close to winning these prestigious events – but it’s an Ineos that wins stages. And in a variety of ways. Once the boring Sky train, albeit a team that won relentlessly, it’s now a creative, daring and versatile team. Ineos are now a bonafide stage hunting team.
Josh Tarling won the stage two time trial of the Giro d’Italia – a discipline that even the old Sky/Ineos team excelled in, ensuring at least some level of continuity – and Thymen Arensman won two mountain-top finishes at the Tour de France. Just four days into the Vuelta a España, and they’ve won again. Sprinting past and beyond Jasper Philipsen, the perceived and accepted best sprinter in the race, Ben Turner, who wasn’t even meant to be at this race until one day before it got underway, charged across the line to take his first Grand Tour stage victory of his career, and Ineos’s fourth of the season. That matches their win tally in Grand Tours from the 2021 and 2022 seasons. It’s some way from the height of the team’s former glories, but it draws a clear line under the comparative famine of the past two years.
An emotional Turner is congratulated by Filippo Ganna after his success (Image: ASO)
That it was Turner who scored the team the victory on stage four was a circumstance that no one would have forecast last week, when the Briton was riding the Renewi Tour in Belgium, a race that finished on Sunday, which also doubled up as stage two of the Vuelta. Following a late illness to Lucas Hamilton, Ineos called Turner on the way back to the team’s hotel following the conclusion of the second day’s racing in Belgium, and around the same time the Vuelta’s team presentation was taking place. Ben, grab your suitcase, you’re coming to the Vuelta, was the message.
At 6am on Friday morning, having announced his withdrawal from the Renewi Tour, he caught a flight to Turin, where the Vuelta was beginning. Four days later, he won a stage of the Vuelta in Voiron, France. It’s been quite a European road trip. “The last 24 hours were bizarre,” he had previously said of his mad dash rush to get to the Vuelta. “It’s tough, but this is cycling, the sport where you show up when you’re needed.”
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He repaid his team’s faith on stage four, and will now settle into more of a domestique role. In Filippo Ganna, Magnus Sheffield, Bon Jungels and Egan Bernal, Ineos have options to play. They can and will go old school and target the GC with Bernal, while with the aforementioned others that can and will adopt their adventurous and stage hunting approach. All winter John Allert and Scott Drawer, Ineos’s two management leaders before Sir Dave Brailsford’s return in the summer, were repeatedly saying that this was a new Ineos, one that fans could get excited about. On the evidence of the two-and-a-bit Grand Tours so far, it’s hard to disagree. Ineos’s versatility is now their strength.
