A different kind of podium finish for Ineos Grenadiers. A year ago, Richard Carapaz's third place at the Tour de France was couched as a failure, not least because the Ecuadorian's performance was the lone high note in a dissonant collective display from the squad with the biggest budget in cycling.
Twelve months on, the mood music around Geraint Thomas' impending podium finish – again behind the unassailable duo of Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar – is rather more harmonious.
Pre-race expectations were undoubtedly more muted, of course, due to the absence of the injured Egan Bernal, the only Ineos rider who might realistically have carried a tune with Vingegaard and Pogacar at this Tour, but the squad's performance was also more coherent than last year's effort. Tom Pidcock's victory at Alpe d'Huez, too, offered an optimistic note for the future.
At the start of the season, Thomas was behind Daniel Martínez and Adam Yates in the team's Tour depth chart, but victory at the Tour de Suisse in June bumped him up the hierarchy. The 36-year-old rode consistently across the three weeks of the Tour, and although he enters the final weekend exactly eight minutes off Vingegaard's yellow jersey, manager Rod Ellingworth suggested his athletic performance here was better than the one that brought him to Paris in yellow in 2018.
"I think the team performance this year has been very good, and it's been great to see Geraint do what he's doing," Ellingworth told Cyclingnews. "He's got all three places on the podium now, which is something, and he's proved that he's capable of improving. It's not like he's the same as when he won, he's actually getting better."
Four years ago, Thomas wore yellow for ten days and won back-to-back stages at La Rosière and Alpe d'Huez in a Tour that was raced almost exclusively on his and Team Sky's terms. Four years on, the lie of the land has changed utterly. Ineos are no longer the point of reference for the entire peloton, and the racing is no longer as controlled as it was in 2018.
Over the past three weeks, Vingegaard and Pogacar have routinely travelled to places that their rivals could not reach, but Thomas limited the damage better than anyone else, even when forced to give lone chase in the mountains.
"When he won in 2018, it was a very well put together race for Geraint," Ellingworth said. "But, across the board, he's improved across every area since then, and it was a near-on perfect performance from Geraint here. Every day, he's gone from start to finish as best he can. He's not got carried away. He's realistic, that's the thing. He knows what he can do, and he's sat perfectly in his position.
"He's clearly the third best bike rider here, there's no accident or bad luck that took out any GC guy, he's proved he's the third best guy here. We'll take that. We'll take it on the chin and learn from it."
While Martìnez faded from the GC picture early on, Yates lasted longer in the hunt for podium places before illness compromised his race in the Pyrenees, and he will begin Saturday's time trial in 10th place overall. After Yates' work on his behalf en route to Peyragudes in midweek, Thomas made a point of highlighting that his teammate was out of contract at the end of the season. Yates has been linked with a possible return to his brother Simon's side at BikeExchange-Jacyo.
"I think things will unfold after the Tour," Ellingworth said of Yates' contract status. "I think he's been massively compromised by illness here, which is a shame for him. He's been so focused and he's very detailed, a real professional athlete, no question at all."
Bernal
While Ineos have, in Ellingworth's words "deliberately moved on" from their days of riding tempo at the head of the peloton, it is clear, too, that other teams in the peloton have moved past them too. Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates, though depleted by injuries and illness, dictated terms to the rest of the field with notable facility.
"I think it's like when we were leading, guys lift their game," Ellingworth said of their striking collective displays. "In terms of percentage difference, there's not a lot between them all. You can see that they've just lifted their game. I don't think your Benoots and Van Hooydoncks have done anything spectacular here, but they've been very committed and they've gone out every day with intent."
Ineos will hope, of course, that Bernal's eventual return to the fray will help to put them back on a more equal footing with Vingegaard and Pogacar in the years ahead. The speed of Bernal's rehabilitation from his life-threatening crash in January has surpassed all expectations, but despite the encouraging news emanating from a recent training camp in Andorra, his return to competition has yet to be decided.
"There's no fixed date yet. He's got some further medical tests to do, and we're not going to do anything silly here," Ellingworth said. "There are two things here: there's returning to racing but there's also returning to performing. And I think you have to look at both when you calculate when he's going to come back.
"But the guy's on fire. When I met him, he was really upbeat, really looking forward to going to Andorra and it's gone really well for him up there. He's got some work to do, but he knows that, and there's nobody better than him to get stuck into it. Hopefully, we'll see him before the end of the year, but it's not guaranteed."
