3 'musts' for INEOS Grenadiers to get back on track in 2025

INEOS Grenadiers is coming off the back of one of the most difficult seasons in its history. The British team, which has been used to winning, has seen its performance decline in recent years until 2024, when sporting underperformance has been mixed with extra-sporting problems.

Beyond Geraint Thomas' podium finish in the Giro d'Italia and Tom Pidcock's win in the Amstel Gold Race, they haven't had a great result, and the squad's difficult times at both Tour de France and Vuelta a España were quite telling, as this is a team that has largely focused on the Grand Tours throughout the last decade and a half.

Between the departure of young cyclists, the mass departure of key team staff and the whole Tom Pidcock affair, it marked a very hard year where it was decided that things must change into 2025. Alongside CiclismoAlDia, we have analyzed a few.

Carlos Rodriguez had a great breakthrough in the WorldTour winning the Spanish national championships and racing at a high level in the Vuelta a España 2022. Then in 2023 he signed a great Tour finishing fifth and winning a stage. However, this season he has not continued his progression. In the Grande Boucle he could only finish seventh and in the Vuelta, tenth. It is clear that much more is expected than winning the overall in Romandie or stages in the Itzulia and Dauphiné. So, after the slump, he should get right into the fight to get on the podium in grand tours and, when none of the unbeatable riders are there right now, try to fight even to win them.

It is very nice to have a rider like Tom Pidcock who wins the World Championships or an Olympic Gold in Mountain Bike, but the truth is that the successes of INEOS Grenadiers are mostly measured on the road and having the British rider focus in other disciplines is not the best bang for your buck. They should convince Pidcock - once it looks like he's going to ride with them in 2025 - to schedule a calendar in which the classics are the big priority.

If he is to focus on a possible Tour de France GC then it will be on the condition that Rodríguez and Thomas will not do the same; and if one of them does, then have Pidcock as a stage hunter and not seek an hypothetical smaller GC result. He is a rider similar to Julian Alaphilippe and he should seek the same kind of races.

Of the three things that can happen to INEOS to recover part of its greatness, the resurrection of Egan Bernal is the most complicated. We don't know if the Colombian will be able to return to a level of fighting for grand tours after the accident that almost cost him his life. In 2024 he has made good progress and has proven to be a very efficient domestique in the high mountains in the Grand Tours - as well as a strong rider in the one-week races.

But the climbing performances have evolved quite a bit since his injury, he has to improve his level and not just have his pre-2022 level. But from there to dream of winning the Vuelta to close the triumph in the three Grand Tours is complicated. However, we know that he is working to try to achieve it and, if he does, to be back with the best for 3 weeks, it would be a great boost to a team that has had a horrible year in 2024.