INEOS’ cycling team are in freefall – should Manchester United be worried? (2024)

It was April 2019 when INEOS took control of what had been cycling’s Team Sky.

Since their foundation in 2009, Team Sky had been the dominant force in men’s professional cycling, winning four successive Tours de France — the sport’s most prestigious race — together with the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana, meaning they had won all three of cycling’s Grand Tours.

INEOS invested in an attempt to build on that legacy and forge its own sporting brand. But today, INEOS Grenadiers are no longer that powerhouse.

Cultural problems within the team, a high turnover of coaches and a recruitment policy which has baffled the rest of the sport have all contributed, with Tom Pidco*ck, their highest-paid rider and a double Olympic gold medal-winning mountain biker in 2020 and 2024, describing himself as “frazzled” over his future after the men’s road race at the recent Games in Paris.

In February, INEOS founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe addressed fans on the methodology he would implement at Manchester United after buying a stake in the Premier League club by using the same language he had used five years ago when taking over Team Sky.

So what do the struggles of his old plaything mean for his shiny new one?

The circ*mstances of INEOS’ arrival in cycling were very different to those which marked its entry at Manchester United.

With the latter, Ratcliffe was investing in a club who had not won the Premier League in over a decade and had been eclipsed in that time by old rivals such as Liverpool, and newer ones including Manchester City and Chelsea.

When INEOS invested in cycling, it walked into an all-conquering team spearheaded by Sir Dave Brailsford — now a senior advisor at United as Ratcliffe’s director of sport at INEOS. The 60-year-old was a huge part of Team Sky’s success. Originally entering elite sport as the guru behind Team GB’s many track-cycling successes, Brailsford had built a reputation as a disruptor who challenged cycling’s conventional wisdom and embraced marginal gains.

He also identified, secured financing for, and employed several members of a performance team who were considered — to borrow Ratcliffe’s favourite phrase — “best-in-class”.

At the same time, this ‘winning culture’ could be difficult for the athletes.

Victoria Pendleton, one of Team GB’s biggest stars and a double Olympic gold medalist, wrote in her memoir that she was told during training to “man up” and “be more of a b***h”. Fellow Olympian Jessica Varnish accused British Cycling in an employment tribunal of exercising “extreme control” over her life, which the body denied. Varnish ultimately lost the tribunal.

In 2017, writing in UK newspaper The Times in response to a scathing independent review of British Cycling’s culture, Brailsford argued that though “we inevitably got some things wrong”, the team were “medallist not sexist” and warned against “over-correcting” faults.

Agree or disagree with Brailsford, the fact remains that this is the mindset United are bringing in.

But by the time of INEOS’ investment, another shadow had been cast over the cycling team, one which had ultimately provided them with that opportunity to invest.

On launching, Team Sky pledged a “zero tolerance” approach to doping, which had blighted cycling throughout its history, including a ban on hiring anyone who had a previous “association” with banned substances. However, within four years, a doctor (Geert Leinders), a rider (Michael Barry) and two coaches/managers (Bobby Julich and Steven de Jongh) left the team’s employment after doping connections emerged.

The problem peaked after Chris Froome’s third Tour de France victory in 2016, when a Russian hacking group calling themselves the Fancy Bears accessed the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) servers.

They discovered that many Team Sky riders — including Froome and Wiggins, their two Grand Tour winners — had requested dozens of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) — the doctors’ notes which athletes need to be able to legally take prescribed amounts of banned drugs for medical reasons.

At best, this appeared to be a morally dubious exploitation of loopholes; many observers went further, accusing Team Sky of cheating.

In an era of Premier League profit and sustainability rules (PSR), where clubs increasingly risk going close to the line, this is relevant context.

Back in 2018, a UK government report concluded that Team Sky had “crossed an ethical line” by using medical drugs to “enhance the performance of riders”. Broadcaster Sky — which was not just title sponsor but owned the team — sold up.

After being convinced by Brailsford, Ratcliffe stepped in to save the team but now their results, as well as the methods used to attain them, are being questioned.

Colombian climber Egan Bernal, then 22, won the 2019 Tour de France, but that triumph — just three months after the INEOS takeover — belonged more to the old regime. Since then, the newly-renamed INEOS Grenadiers have not seriously competed for another champions’ yellow jersey. Last month’s Tour de France saw the team’s worst performance in the event since 2010.

“You need to create this environment which is driven and competitive,” Ratcliffe told reporters in his first interview after completing the purchase of his stake in United. “It is going to be intense at times, but equally it needs to have warmth and friendliness and be a supportive structure, because the two things marry together well. They probably haven’t had that environment for the last 10 years.”

Warmth, friendliness, and support — it is worth remembering those words.

There is a perception around the cycling world that the INEOS team is a difficult place to work — with elements of British Cycling’s old culture persisting around the high-performance setup.

Some of the discontent in the team appears visible from the outside.

Before this summer’s Tour de France, team manager Steve Cummings was mysteriously left behind, having typically been taken to every race as a key voice in team strategy. Despite repeated questioning from the cycling media, INEOS has refused to comment on the reasoning behind this. Rumours have swirled of a fallout between Cummings and Pidco*ck. INEOS Grenadiers have refused to comment on Cummings’ absence throughout.

Some sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their positions, also criticised the lack of diversity in hiring — other teams have joked that you needed to be “balding, middle-aged, and male” to work there.

On the racing side of the staff (not including administrative personnel), there are just three women among 69 employees, and 11 of 93 overall. They also do not have a female road-racing team, despite having one of the sport’s largest budgets, in contrast to many of their rivals.

Dutch rivals Visma-Lease a Bike, the sport’s dominant team, have 23 female staff members overall, as well as a professional women’s team.

The 2024 Tour de France was disastrous for INEOS. Pidco*ck fell ill with Covid-19 and withdrew, they failed to win a stage in the race for the first time since 2014 and did not compete for any of the four jerseys awarded to the overall winner, best sprinter, best climber and top young rider.

Winless in the last 10 Grand Tours — the Vuelta a Espana is ongoing, but no INEOS rider is a contender for overall victory — the personnel has begun to change.

Brailsford, who stepped down as team principal in January, had already given up his day-to-day duties some years before due to his cross-sport role at INEOS but his shadow is described as “hanging over the place” by staff members. In his absence, the handling of the team was passed over to deputy Rod Ellingworth, one of the original employees to create Team Sky 15 years ago. But Ellingworth then resigned out of the blue at the end of last season. No reason has been provided.

Earlier this month, Dan Bigham — a Team GB cyclist who also doubles as a highly-rated technical performance guru — announced he would be leaving the team, speaking publicly about his disillusionment. “I feel that a lot of performance we’re leaving on the table and that frustrates me, because it’s clear as day we should be doing things a lot better,” Bigham told the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper. “Let’s be honest, INEOS are not where they want to be, not where they need to be and the gap is not small.”

Far from building a staff that is “best-in-class” at the INEOS Grenadiers, Ratcliffe seems to be losing them.

It is, however, worth mentioning the death of directeur sportif Nico Portal from a heart attack at age 40 in 2020, a man who brought important “human qualities”, as described by Brailsford, to the team. Sources connected to the team have pointed out that Portal’s passing, both the tragedy itself and the loss of his soft skills and rider management, have contributed to the pallor felt by some after INEOS’ takeover.

But there is a sense that this is a team who have lost their identity. Senior rider Geraint Thomas, who won the 2018 Tour de France, told reporters during this year’s race that the new structure was “challenging”. “It’s like a coalition government,” Thomas said. “You need a majority. Even if you didn’t agree with stuff (before), at least there was a clear, ‘Boom, boom, boom — that’s it, move on’, rather than this grey area.”

That view has been echoed both inside and outside the team. INEOS Grenadiers CEO John Allert, speaking to reporters outside the team bus at the end of this year’s Tour de France, acknowledged that “the reality is not where we used to be… I think the only choice we have is the one that we’re doing at the moment and that’s embracing transition”.

One source at a rival team, speaking anonymously so they could discuss the matter candidly, posed it as a question.

“If you’re a robotic GC (general classification) team, you’re a robotic GC team — but it’s not clear what they’re spending on.”

INEOS Grenadiers did not respond to a request for comment fromThe Athletic.

Cultural issues are one thing, but recruitment is another.

Cycling is one of the only sports which, while operating with smaller numbers financially, has a comparable athlete transfer system to football. The structural reset which Ratcliffe has promised will take time — meaning rider recruitment is the most immediate thing on which his part-ownership will be judged.

Though leading Dutch club Ajax have made one joke at their expense, United’s initial spending in their first INEOS-era transfer window — bringing in Leny Yoro from Lille, Joshua Zirkzee from Bologna, and Noussair Mazraoui and Matthijs de Ligt from Bayern Munich — appears sensible, although time will tell if they have the desired effect on a club who endured their worst-ever Premier League finish last season (eighth, on 60 points — 31 adrift of champions and neighbours Manchester City).

Manchester is red 😉

— AFC Ajax (@AFCAjax) August 13, 2024

But since assuming control of Team Sky, recruitment has been arguably the INEOS Grenadiers’ biggest weakness.

In 2009, Team Sky wanted to make a statement signing — and kicked off the modern incarnation of cycling’s transfer market by aggressively buying out Bradley Wiggins’ contract with American team Garmin Slipstream (now named EF Education–EasyPost). “It’s a bit like trying to win the Champions League: to win the Champions League, you go to Manchester United and I’m probably playing at Wigan at the moment,” Wiggins told the BBC in 2009, as he tried to force the move through.

In the 2010s, Team Sky built a machine who won cycling’s biggest races — signing not only the elite climbing talent, such as Wiggins and fellow Brit Froome but also riders who could pace the leaders along the flat (rouleurs) or in the mountains (domestiques/super-domestiques).

Their current squad is far weaker.

INEOS Grenadiers have none of the sport’s big four on their books — Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic — who are currently the only men realistically able to win the Tour de France.

It is fair to argue there are only so many elite riders and point out that quartet’s current teams are hardly going to allow them to leave easily.

Another mitigating factor is the life-threatening crash suffered by Bernal in 2022, when he hit a bus while travelling at around 30mph on a training ride. The team anticipated him becoming their leader for the coming decade; instead, in his past two Tours de France, he has finished 36th and 29th.

Put into this position, INEOS Grenadiers have failed to entice cycling’s top prospects, despite possessing one of the sport’s largest budgets.

For example, Spain’s Juan Ayuso, 21, and Mexican Isaac del Toro, 20, both signed for reigning Tour de France winners Team UAE Emirates over INEOS Grenadiers. Visma–Lease a Bike have also beaten them to several youngsters. INEOS Grenadiers’ current team leader, 23-year-old Spaniard Carlos Rodriguez, is an undoubted talent but is a step below the very top riders.

They do have 20-year-old time-trialist Josh Tarling, one of the world’s finest at that discipline, and are excited about the signing of 18-year-old Dane Peter Oxenberg. Welshman Tarling, however, is a stage winner rather than a Grand Tour winner, while Oxenberg is years away from realising his potential.

The latter is analogous to signing a top footballing prospect to your youth academy — they could develop into an Alejandro Garnacho and crack the first team, which the young Argentinian has done at United, or be moved on without ever truly featuring. United’s signing of 18-year-old central defender Yoro, for example, is a level above, in terms of pedigree, than any of INEOS’ youth signings in recent seasons.

Put simply, if INEOS Grenadiers want to return to winning Grand Tours, they need to regain the ability to sign the best riders — and fix the issues which keep them away from their ranks.

This month, for example, they are struggling to retain their own. Pidco*ck has ridden for the team since 2021, winning the stage at the famous Alpe d’Huez in the 2022 Tour de France, and is the team’s most high-profile rider. However, the expectation across the sport is that he will leave at the end of this season.

Talking to reporters in a mixed zone during the Olympics, he described himself as “mentally a bit frazzled” over his future. A Team GB press officer quickly ended the interview. This year’s edition of the television show Tour de France Unchained demonstrated his awkward place in the team: unhappy that Rodriguez was named team leader for the race with his own form in the mountain stages uncertain.

But aside from Pidco*ck, other transfer dealings have parallels with United.

Norwegian rider Tobias Foss was set to sign, before reports in the cycling media stated his deal was put on hold as other options appeared available. Foss’ arrival was eventually announced after the failure to secure alternatives. It is not dissimilar to the treatment of Erik ten Hag at the end of last season, when the United manager had to wait several weeks before his future was resolved as the club conducted interviews with potential replacements, including Thomas Tuchel and Roberto De Zerbi.

For the case of United centre-back Jonny Evans, read Cameron Wurf.

Now 41, the Australian rider was signed permanently four years ago after initially just training with INEOS’ riders in the offseason. He is still part of the squad on a short-term deal. Evans was a United player for almost a decade, left, spent eight seasons playing elsewhere, then returned last summer as a 35-year-old free agent and ended up making 32 appearances, including starting 15 of their 38 Premier League matches.

The INEOS Grenadiers are a team who know where they want to be but do not know what they are, leaving them well adrift in a competition they used to dominate. Now their leaders are trying to do the same in the ultra-competitive Premier League, against rivals who have a significant head start in terms of infrastructure and squad quality.

There are two views of Brailsford’s role in this.

One is that the INEOS Grenadiers have worsened as his daily involvement lessened, demonstrating how important he had been to their early success. They have not won a Grand Tour since he changed tack. The other, with his influence still felt throughout INEOS’ sporting empire, is that his methods are no longer as cutting-edge as they once appeared.

Regardless, it is a strange situation where the cycling team look shorn of specialist expertise — while United, even with their new football leadership, are receiving counsel from Brailsford, a cycling specialist.

“At INEOS, we don’t mind people making mistakes — but please don’t make it a second time,” Ratcliffe said in February. “We’re much less than sympathetic when they make the same mistake twice.”

Mistakes have been made at the INEOS Grenadiers, but Ratcliffe is still talking a similar game.

Will history repeat itself?

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)