“Geraint Thomas knows you’ve got to evolve with the times”: Team Sky original explains Tour de France champion’s key role in INEOS rebuild

When Geraint Thomas stepped into his new role as Director of Racing at INEOS Grenadiers, it was never intended as a ceremonial appointment. For those still racing under his leadership, the value lies in something far more practical.

“I think he’s just going to hold that perspective of what it’s actually like in the current peloton,” said Ben Swift in conversation with Cycling News. “There are shifts throughout the years. We saw a big one after 2020, and then there’s another one happening now, so he’s really fresh and knows it.”

That assessment goes to the heart of why Thomas has become such a central figure in INEOS’s reset.

After seasons in which the team’s strength often outpaced its results, the ability to translate modern race dynamics into decision-making has quietly become a priority.

Swift’s perspective carries particular weight. As a rider who has spent much of his early career alongside Thomas at Team Sky and remained part of the organisation through its transition into INEOS, he has seen both the peak of dominance and the more recent period of recalibration.

“What you’ve got to realise with G is he’s so passionate about this team,” Swift explained. “He’s seen the highest of highs on this team, and we’ve been together on the lowest of our years, when we’ve been on the lowest lows.”

That shared history, Swift suggested, is precisely what allows Thomas to understand when past lessons still apply and when they do not. “He’s also got the experience from the past, with what worked back then and what works now. He knows you’ve got to evolve with the times.”

For a team seeking to modernise without abandoning its identity, that balance is critical.

Thomas’s impact is not confined to strategy meetings or race briefings. Swift described an environment shaped by momentum and clarity following a strong start to the 2026 season. “We’ve come out aggressively, and we’ve won quite a few races,” he said. “We just want to build on that, build that momentum, and get back to our place where we used to be.”

That ambition reflects a wider shift inside INEOS, where leadership has become layered rather than centralised. Thomas operates alongside Dave Brailsford, whose return to hands-on involvement has reasserted standards from the top, while newer signings and academy riders are being integrated with a clearer sense of purpose.

Swift was candid about the recent past. “For our standards in 2024, it was a poor year,” he said. “It wasn’t terrible in the grand scheme of things, but what we hold ourselves to and the level we operate at, it wasn’t good enough.”

Crucially, Swift framed Thomas’s role not around reputation, but responsibility. “He definitely knows what it takes,” he said. “He wants to see the team succeed, and he’s going to invest everything that he can.”

That investment is less about imposing old methods and more about interpreting a peloton that continues to change. For INEOS, the lesson of recent seasons has been that talent alone is not enough. Understanding when races are won, how pressure points shift, and why control looks different now than it did five years ago has become just as important.

In that sense, Thomas’s appointment is not a nod to the past, but a calculated move aimed at the present. As Swift’s words underline, the rebuild at INEOS is not about rediscovering what once worked. It is about recognising what works now, and having the right people in place to act on it.