{"id":709979,"date":"2026-07-25T04:32:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T04:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/709979\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T04:32:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T04:32:17","slug":"even-when-i-was-a-rider-i-wasnt-the-type-to-wallow-in-my-own-sorrow-geraint-thomas-says-netcompany-ineos-moving-in-right-direction-despite-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/709979\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Even when I was a rider, I wasn\u2019t the type to wallow in my own sorrow\u2019 \u2013 Geraint Thomas says Netcompany Ineos moving in \u2018right direction\u2019 despite Tour de France struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Netcompany joined Ineos as title sponsors of the British WorldTour team just a couple of months ago, it came with a stated ambition of winning the Tour de France<\/a> within the next five years. 18 stages into the first edition of this new era, and the AI systems powering this new era for the team may well be forced into some recalculations.<\/p>\n

Ineos have had a rotten Tour so far, and time is rapidly running out to salvage anything from it.<\/p>\n

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The problems started well before the race began in Barcelona three weeks ago as the team\u2019s leader, Oscar Onley, was sidelined through injury<\/a>. With Carlos Rodr\u00edguez surprisingly non-selected and K\u00e9vin Vauquelin short of his top form, the GC leadership trio that was spoken about earlier in the year was non-existent.<\/p>\n

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Instead, Ineos would chase stages, calling in their GC duo from the Giro d\u2019Italia, Egan Bernal and Thymen Arensman, with Dorion Godon to try his hand in the sprints and Vauquelin to get up the road just about everywhere else. Add in the horsepower of Filippo Ganna and Josh Tarling, the experience of Michal Kwiatkowski, and the underlying quality of Tobias Foss, and there was no reason to be pessimistic.<\/p>\n

However, the opening team time trial was thrown off by a puncture, and things have hardly improved from there \u2013 in fact, punctures have been a recurring theme. Filippo Ganna\u2019s fifth place on stage 9 is Ineos\u2019 best individual result of the race so far, and Arensman\u2019s farcical late-show to the stage 16 time trial seemed to say something about their Tour as a whole.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEven when I was a rider, I had some tough moments, but I wasn\u2019t the type to just go home and wallow in my own sorrow and cry about it,\u201d Geraint Thomas, the team\u2019s Director of Racing told Cyclingnews in Voiron at the start of stage 18.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get up and you get a plan together and you go again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He was speaking in the context of this Tour but also the season as a whole.<\/p>\n

After he did so, Bernal and Arensman made the break but would go on to finish in 47th and 48th place. That leaves three stages, with a double-header up at Alpe d\u2019Huez followed by the punchy finale in Paris on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe boys are still upbeat and positive and looking to get after it,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cWe started on the back foot, and you\u2019re up against it anyway at the Tour when you\u2019re trying to go for stages, and you know there are only a few days when the breakaway is going to succeed anyway.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s tough when you don\u2019t have an out-and-out sprinter, and you have Poga\u010dar going for these mountain days. But all the boys are motivated, they want to try and get something for themselves and for the team. They\u2019re ready to go after it and that\u2019s all you can ask for really.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Egan\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Thomas has been putting on this sort of brave face for many days now at this Tour de France, and while he knows it\u2019s been a rough run, he insists the team is moving in the right direction when you zoom out.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, you can see it as like pressure and like \u2018what if we don\u2019t do this or that\u2019, but we\u2019re privileged to be involved in this sport. It\u2019s sport at the end of the day, it doesn\u2019t really matter, you know, we\u2019re in the real world. We\u2019re super lucky to be in this position, we\u2019re ambitious, and we want to keep pushing forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anything, this spurs us on to continue to improve because we have improved a lot since last year. Obviously this Tour has been a bit of a struggle at times, but I think when you look back at the season as whole, we\u2019re definitely moving in the right direction. There are a lot of positives, it\u2019s exciting. I just want to keep going now.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a sense that Thomas is finding his stride now, nearly seven months after stepping into this management role following the conclusion of his illustrious racing career.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I\u2019ve started I\u2019ve been across a lot of things, just to get an understanding of how the team works. It\u2019s all part of the process, and if I was to go back, I\u2019d still do that because you still need that overview,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now I can start to zone in, prioritise things, and spend more time on certain aspects. I think things will be better that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether Thomas can help steer Netcompany Ineos<\/a> back towards somewhere approaching the sort of glories they enjoyed when he was a rider remains to be seen. In the meantime, a bad Tour can become a good Tour in a flash, so it\u2019s not over until it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! <\/a>Find out more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Netcompany joined Ineos as title sponsors of the British WorldTour team just a couple of months ago,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-709979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}