Bernal, Martínez and Rodríguez - INEOS plan on Spanish-speaking leadership at Tour de France

It's not a final decision, but if the INEOS Grenadiers team had to choose its leaders for the 2023 Tour de France, as of today they would all speak Spanish because they would be Egan Bernal, Daniel Martinez and Carlos Rodriguez. This is what sports director Steve Cummings has advanced to the folks at Cycling Weekly.

"It will be Dani, potentially Egan, and Carlos as leaders in the Tour. After that we don't know the rest of the team," Cummings said. "The season is long, a lot can happen, and January is too early to be that specific about it, but that's our current plan. In May we'll have a much clearer idea of the details, how we'll approach it and how many riders we'll protect."

Cummings explains that they want to take 3 potential leaders again because they have a lot of very quality riders and it seems to them the most appropriate strategy. "It's quite difficult to decide. We have so many top cyclists that it's difficult to choose between them. The data we have, the performances they do, the feedback we get from them, it's not clear who should be the leader. It's complicated.

Regarding Egan Bernal, as is logical, although at first the intention is for him to go to Tour de France, everything will ultimately depend on his form. "It also depends on Egan. He's still in rehab, and if he comes back maybe everything will change. If not, if he takes longer to come back, then you have to decide whether to take him. He still has his medical appointments and is still in the rehab phase. We need to be patient and let him go through the process," he said.

About Carlos Rodríguez, who until he crashed in the last Vuelta a España was fighting for the podium in his first grand tour, he ended up commenting the following (he doesn't assure one hundred percent his presence in the Grand Boucle):

"I wouldn't say for sure that he's going to go , but he's on the shortlist, just like last year," Cummings clarified. "He was on the list of favorites because of his pace of development and how mature he is as a cyclist, and the same is true this year."