Well it didn’t take long for Brailsford to come up with a potential answer to Pogocar, Remco, Van Aert, VdP...
The interesting thing will be watching the exodus of young riders with TdF ambitions. Ineos seem to have bet the farm on little guys like Bernal and Carapaz (maybe Sivakov) who aren’t very talented TT riders. Given the lack of drama for most of the mountain stages (JV or Ineos burns off all but the 6 or 7 best climbers and there is a sprint inside the last 700 meters for time bonuses and a handful of seconds). I don’t see the Tour organizers eliminating TTs and the formula for success still seems to be a guy that can ride fast by themselves.
I guess if you look back at the last 30 years of Tour winners only Pantani and Bernal won without being able to destroy everyone in a TT as well as being able to at least limit their losses to the pure climbers.
The interesting thing will be watching the exodus of young riders with TdF ambitions. Ineos seem to have bet the farm on little guys like Bernal and Carapaz (maybe Sivakov) who aren’t very talented TT riders. Given the lack of drama for most of the mountain stages (JV or Ineos burns off all but the 6 or 7 best climbers and there is a sprint inside the last 700 meters for time bonuses and a handful of seconds). I don’t see the Tour organizers eliminating TTs and the formula for success still seems to be a guy that can ride fast by themselves.
I guess if you look back at the last 30 years of Tour winners only Pantani and Bernal won without being able to destroy everyone in a TT as well as being able to at least limit their losses to the pure climbers.