"We need to go back to the drawing board" - INEOS Grenadiers DS admits work to be done to match the likes of Team Visma | Lease a Bike

With both Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico taking place across Europe last week, INEOS Grenadiers had high hopes of securing an overall podium.

Sadly, despite Egan Bernal, Thymen Arensman and Tom Pidcock taking top-10 in their respective races, a podium finish proved to just be a bridge too far. “It’s been an up-and-down week,” said sports director Zak Dempster to GCN from Tirreno-Adriatico. “Filippo Ganna was super close to a stage win, which was one of our objectives. We weren't able to achieve that throughout the week but having said that there was really nice progression from both Tom and Thymen on the GC.”

With Arensman 6th in the GC, 2:25 down on winner, Jonas Vingegaard and Pidcock in 9th at 4:05, there are positives to take for the INEOS Grenadiers. "Thymen is right there and with some small improvements in time trial and execution on the longer and harder mountain stages that will come in the Grand Tours, I think he’s in a good place to take that next step in his career,” assesses Dempster. “With Tom, historically we think of him as a guy who has been around for a while but in terms of how he’s been able to perform in this race, day to day, he’s not pulled one of those performances together. Although he’s been really competitive and won races at a top, top level, I think this was a really important step for him, and he should take confidence from it.”

In terms of competing with Team Visma | Lease a Bike however, there is still much work to be done. “We obviously need to bridge that gap so we need to go back to the drawing board and continue that hard work and come back for more because we definitely wanted a bit more from this race," Dempster concludes. "But like I said there’s been good execution and on we go.”