New Ineos Grenadiers Director of Racing Geraint Thomas has confirmed that the team's big goal for the years to come is to add an eighth Tour de France win to the seven the squad already accumulated between 2012 and 2019.
After racing with Team Sky and then Ineos Grenadiers for 16 seasons, it was announced on Thursday morning that retiring rider would be taking up a new position within the team, Director of Racing.
Speaking later on theWatts Occurring podcast, which Thomas hosts alongside former pro and fellow Welshman Luke Rowe, the former Tour de France champion explained his new role in detail. He highlighted helping create healthy internal competition amongst riders and staff, his close relationship with the current roster and working alongside Dave Brailsford as key parts of his job description.
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Talking to Rowe, now a sports director at Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale on the podcast, Thomas explained that he felt his wealth of experience as a pro of 19 years standing - working with different coaches, nutritionists, teammates and targeting different races - put him in an ideal position to "help the boys achieve their goals."
At the same time, as he put it, "pushing the staff in the same way as we push the riders" is also key to a successful team.
"There's always competition for places and it's kind of the same for staff, how are they impacting performance this week…it's not just going through the motions," said Thomas.
"The main thing with that is having a big goal, a big objective everybody thinks, 'that's pretty tough to go to'. It makes you sweat a bit."
The 2018 Tour de France winner confirmed that Ineos' main objective from hereon was returning to the top spot on the Champs Elysées. As he put it, in his recent discussions with Dave Brailsford, "it's no secret, the big goal is winning the Tour again.
"I'm not sure on the time scale, or rather I can't say. But that's what made us successful, and meant we could continue at a high level and got a really good sponsor after Sky. So everything leads towards that.
"This is the start, we're going towards it, everyone's clear."
As for the question of beating the seemingly invincible Pogačar, Thomas reasoned, "Pog's not going to be around forever. In two three years time we want to be in a super-strong position where we can challenge for it, Pog or not."
Thomas also emphasised the importance of acting as a bridge between staff and riders where he would be able to communicate with them more directly, given his position as a former teammate.
"I feel like I've got that relationship with a lot of the guys where hopefully they can be honest with me and they speak with me more openly than they could with anyone else in the team. That would be really beneficial," he said.
Thomas described himself as initially having an observing role, working closely with Brailsford to get a better understanding of the team's internal operations at a staff level. Both he and Rowe mentioned the example of former Sky trainer Tim Kerrison – who apparently spent the best part of a year mostly observing the team – as one Thomas could follow on his own learning curve.
Thomas felt he wouldn't be too tied to specific responsibilities, at least initially, rather "I'm in the senior management team, but I and Dave see the role as - I'm on this table here, then I'm down on that table there, moving around."
"So I've got a lot of ideas but Dave keeps telling me to slow down, we're doing this first. So it's just learning off Dave and understanding their ways of doing things, observing management calls… It's not like they do everything right, but that's life."
