INEOS Grenadiers chasing Grand Tour podium with Egan Bernal & Carlos Rodriguez in 2025: "We also have young talents in the waiting room who may surprise us"
Cycling
There's no doubt that the INEOS Grenadiers are not the force they once were in the peloton. Despite expectations lessening in recent years though, the team remains intent on competing at the pointy end of the sport's biggest races, most notable among them, the three Grand Tours.
"Although that is not an easy task against two top riders like Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, plus Remco Evenepoel who is growing," admits INEOS Grenadiers sports director, Zak Dempster in conversation with HLN.
As such, the definition of success at a Grand Tour may have changed slightly for the once all-conquering INEOS Grenadiers. “We try to do as well as possible and chase the podium,” says Performance Director Scott Drawer, naming Egan Bernal and Carlos Rodriguez as the most notable contenders. “Egan had a difficult comeback after his heavy crash in 2022, but he made big steps forward again this winter. Carlos won the Tour de Romandie last year, but was unable to continue that top form in the Tour and later also the Vuelta after a covid infection.”
"We are confident that both can take a step forward this year and we also have young talents in the waiting room who could surprise," continues Drawer. "Bernal, Pogacar and Vingegaard were also inexperienced when they immediately performed top in their first Grand Tour."
The long and the short of it is relatively simple for INEOS in 2025 though. "We have to win more races," says DS Kurt-Asle Arvesen, with more than just the Grand Tours in the mind of the team leaders for the coming year.
“Filippo Ganna got an extra coach in the team around him and we are convinced that he can take a new step in a post-Olympic year. We see him capable of winning stages in grand tours, which are not time trials,” adds CEO John Allert. “We also hope that Joshua Tarling can perform in the cobbled classics, but we don't want to skip any steps in his process. The same goes for Axel Laurance in the hilly classics. Axel is a great talent and also an asset in terms of atmosphere. He is very ambitious and dreams of winning Milan-Sanremo and Amstel, but let him start by trying to win a stage in Ster van Bessèges. Together with nine other riders Axel is now on altitude training in Tenerife to start the season in good condition... We are convinced that in 2024 we will have laid the foundations for 2025.”
Your photo will be taken in 3, 2, 1... 📸
— INEOS Grenadiers (@INEOSGrenadiers) January 17, 2025
Class of 2025, let’s do this! 👊 pic.twitter.com/TBXobz4UpV
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- In Track and Field, there's Usain Bolt in the sprints and Kenya's Kipchoge in the marathon. Though Bolt can quite easily beat Kipchoge in the 100m dash, he probably won't even finish a marathon. Tadej won't beat Mathieu in a sprint, yet he wins the TDF while MVDP languishes in 50th place. Both are great champions in their respective fields, but my admiration goes to Tadej for trying.FredMan23-03-2025
- They went into the race as co-leaders!frieders323-03-2025
- He can win that sprint if he plays it right but leaving tha gap was ridiculous ! A spring after 6+ hours isn't a guarantee for MVDPfrieders323-03-2025
- The climbs are steeper on Flanders giving Pogi the advanatge as we saw before when he won!frieders323-03-2025
- VDP is best in a short sprint, so Pog was purposely leaving a gap in hopes that VDP wouldn't have enough to sprint for 310 meters at the end of 300 KM. Kwiatkowski did the same thing to Sagan at that same point and won because of it.acem8223-03-2025
- Ganna started winning the occasional end of season sprint a few years ago. It's been fun watching him change from a TT specialist into something more.RidesHills23-03-2025
- hey look, an insinuating question from 2 years ago! I mean, sure, announcers mentioned tail wind, but whatever. That wasn't going to matter today, not with the 2 best classics riders of the past many generations (you have to go back to the 70s to see two people dominate like this, and even Merckx and de Vlaeminck never managed to win 2 each in the same year, the way Pogacar and Van der Poel have done in the past 2 years).RidesHills23-03-2025
- I like my statistics: Pogacar and van der Poel have won 13 of the last 18 Monuments and are tied at 7 each (MvdP won his first long enough ago that it doesn't show the more recent utter domination.) Oh, and the last 2 road world championships. Oh, and one of them also won the last Tour and Giro, while the other won the CX and Gravel world championships. I mean, anyone reading this site knows all this, but it's worth being amazed by it all every now and then.RidesHills23-03-2025
- Congratulations to all three on the podium. The final seconds reminded me of E3 a few years back, when tiny little Pogacar had no chance against van Aert and van der Poel, but that was just the last few seconds of an incredible race. Everything from the launch on the Cipressa to crossing the line was amazing.RidesHills23-03-2025
- All 3 of them went to doping control
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