INEOS Grenadiers confirm departure of another Olympic medalist as the British team searches for a much-needed restart
Cycling
Elia Viviani becomes yet another big departure at INEOS Grenadiers. The future whereabouts of the 35-year-old with Olympic gold from track in his palmares are not clear at the moment. The previous rumours of Italian's move to Q36.5 Pro Cycling seem to have been a false alarm as the Swiss PRT formation officially closed its roster for 2025 after the incorporation of another INEOS rider Tom Pidcock among its ranks.
In Viviani leaves a very experienced rider with 13 Grand Tours, 16 Monuments and 89 professional victories under his belt. Among his greatest road successes are European road title in 2019 as well as 5 stages at Giro d'Italia, 3 stages at Vuelta a Espana and finally completing the triple - a stage win at 2019 Tour de France.
As is relatively clear from a look at this list of successes, Viviani rejoined forces with INEOS in 2022 (Viviani raced for Team Sky between 2015-2017) at a point when he was past his prime. Still it needs to be noted that Viviani brought plenty of valuable results to the INEOS account, including four stage wins over the three seasons. This year was a bit weaker from the Italian, but it's only to be expected with his main focus on track in view to the Paris Olympics where he took silver in the Elimination race.
Speaking of track, Viviani had become Olympic champion in Omnium in 2016 and took Bronze in Tokyo five years later in the same discipline. Despite his success as road sprinter, Viviani continues to successfully combine track with road, becoming a track World Champion once (2021, elimination race) and European champion for a total of eight times across six disciplines (between 2012 and 2019).
As for the moment, it remains unclear what are Viviani's plans for years to come, but he previously highlighted an ambition to represent Italy in Los Angeles 2028 and so we can only wonder if we'll also see the Italian on road.
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It’s been a privilege to race for six seasons with you @eliaviviani 🫡
— INEOS Grenadiers (@INEOSGrenadiers) December 30, 2024
Grazie e buona fortuna in your next chapter 🤝 pic.twitter.com/euKxauWdIn
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