"These have been ten incredible seasons" - Long-time coach of Egan Bernal announces INEOS Grenadiers exit
Cycling
The INEOS Grenadiers have been undergoing a real overhaul of late, both in terms of riders and staff. That continues with the announcement that Xabier Artetxe, long-time coach of Egan Bernal and Carlos Rodriguez among others, is set to leave the British-based team.
"Everything comes to an end, and after years of hard work, discipline, successes, and failures, I am leaving the team that has helped me grow both personally and professionally," Artetxe writes in a post on his official LinkedIn account. "I want to express my deepest gratitude to Sir Dave Brailsford, Rod Ellingworth, Tim Kerrison, and Fran Millar for giving me the opportunity in 2014 to be part of the powerful Team Sky. Without the trust they placed in me, I would never have fulfilled many of my dreams."
Alongside the aforementioned Bernal and Rodriguez, Artetxe has worked closely with INEOS stars of years gone by such as Richard Carapaz, helping to bring much success to the team over the course of his time working with them. "These have been ten incredible seasons in which the team has won five Tour de France titles, three Giro d'Italia titles, one Vuelta a Espana, several 'Monuments', as well as World Championships and Olympic medals in different disciplines,” he continued his reflections. "I also don't want to forget Nicolas Portal, who was always willing to help me from the very first day we met. We quickly connected and became more than just colleagues. His friendship and energy will always be with me."
Now though, Artetxe is looking elsewhere with ambition and excitement for what's to come. "It is time to change goals and start new challenges and projects that I am very excited about. Challenges that will push me out of my comfort zone and help me improve, something that coaches should never forget," he concludes. "Don’t think I am leaving cycling behind; I will always remain connected to this sport because it has always been and always will be my passion."
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🗣️ | "I’m sad to have crashed, but at the same time the way I felt during the race gave me a lot of confidence and motivation to keep working hard."
— INEOS Grenadiers (@INEOSGrenadiers) February 17, 2025
Hear from @Eganbernal following his crash today at #ClasicaJaen. https://t.co/CeNMluVNT9 https://t.co/XvPh35UEuu
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- i wouldn't count Pogi out. Low probability of a win, but not impossiblemobk01-04-2025
- Right now it doesn't seem that his legs are there or that his head is in the racevappaxbipmv01-04-2025
- would have been nice to hear exactly WHY he thinks pog has zero chance in some greater detail. i mean, tend to agree that his chances aren’t GREAT, but some explanation from the expert with an opinion would be nice. MINE is that, in spite of the recon he did where tadej concluded that the course “wasn’t that hard” i think that doing the full route at full gas is really going to beat up pogacar’s 145lb body, to a degree that he maybe isn’t expecting. but hey, we’ll see in a couple weeks. like everyone else, i do think it’s supercool that he’s going.OCexile01-04-2025
- Go back to that era and look at the lousy mechanicals he's had at Paris-Roubaix. Take those away, maybe he has another Monument, Van der Poel has one less, and suddenly all the rules change. Those mechanicals preceded his awful crashes - and you're right, that Tour was amazing. Ventoux, TT, and Champs-Elysees?! Something that Pogacar and Van der Poel can't do, just Wout. It still amazes me.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Oh, the impossibility of this kind of comparison. A pre-WW2 Binda had amazing statistics, and that was one era. During what I think of as the romantic era, Poulidor had an incredible run at the Tour without winning, and Bobet won some grand tours and some Monuments. In this modern era (for me: after Hinault), we've had multiple Monument winners win a grand tour (such as Valverde and Kelly, with Kelly the better rider in general), and then we've got someone like Roglic, the true GC rider. Sure there was a Monument that was kind of a fluke (both Pogacar and Hirschi might have won, and twitchy Alaphilippe deserved relegation), but what matters are the 5 grand tours and all these wins across the 1 week GC races except for the Tour de Suisse (you'd think he'd race it to get the set of them all). In this era, since 2000 or so, maybe he meets the description as best non-Tour winner. How many GC riders have these wins and not the Tour? To compare to other eras really is not possible. He's his own unique rider, and it's been amazing watching him for the past many years. That's about all we can say.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Ease up on a brother!bobo01-04-2025
- Primoz finds ways to win. Too bad he'll never take Tour de France.awp01-04-2025
- I don't think I would ever count Wout van Aert out of a race if his head is in it. He is a serious talent.awp01-04-2025
- He's a great rider for sure, not sure if he the best to never win the Tour though.awp01-04-2025
- Hard to imagine that his confidence - that imperious flow state that great athletes operate in - hasn't been affected. But that is a different dynamic than the one you described. He has not become hesitant because he is fixated on his rival. He has suffered multiple traumatic injuries, and I have no doubt he is still 1% off both mentally and physically as a result. Football (both kinds) and basketball players who blow out knees go through a predictable cycle in which they are reluctant to do max efforts even after their doctors have cleared them. I myself went though a small version of that after a back injury. It's just hard once you no longer know where the line is. We saw in his TT a couple weeks ago that he still has power, and for all the hand wringing he is still finishing in the top 10-20 of big races. But as we have seen with others, getting *all* the way back is not assured. I'm not ready to say he is done, but few riders who have been hurt as often and as badly as him remain at the top.MidnightRider01-04-2025