20/08/2022

"He’s gained some pretty good time on other GC riders so that’s good" - INEOS happy with GC outcome of opening day

INEOS Grenadiers are aiming high at this Vuelta a Espana and yesterday in the team time-trial there was an opening test in which the British team thrived to finish second place only behind Jumbo-Visma, with a deficit of 13 seconds.

“We’re pretty happy with that result. We knew Jumbo had maybe the strongest team, we knew we were in with a shout but we also knew Quick Step would be close as well," team manager Rod Ellingworth told reporters after the finish. “You always want to win, of course you do, but it is what it is. I’m pretty sure the lads will say they couldn’t have done a lot more".

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Evenepoel shows good signs on opening day despite having "done very long turns"

INEOS entered the day as big favourites, with the likes of TT specialists Ethan Hayter, Luke Plapp and Dylan van Baarle set to be a big boost for the team's aspirations. With several GC riders on board, the British team arrived at the finish with seven riders only missing Ben Turner, and have taken time on the grand majority of the competition - except Primoz Roglic.

“The thing is with team time trialling, you can’t go in with a let’s go easy attitude. Yeah, there’s another 20 days to go but you’ve still got to go at it pretty hard. And you can sort of see, the gaps were big enough to warrant pushing and seeing what happened," Ellingworth pointed out.

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"It’s seconds one day, minutes another day. But it’s just nice for the lads: they will come back buzzing after that, obviously they’re disappointed not to have won the stage but each individual will be happy with their performance, I’m sure," he said. The performance has put four of the team's riders in the first places of the youth classification, but they have also seen Richard Carapaz take an early lead on many rivals.

“And for Richard, it’s a nice little start. Within a time trial environment, he’s gained some pretty good time on other GC riders so that’s good," he concluded.