Brailsford: ‘Winning next year's Tour starts now'

Beaten at nearly every turn by rivals Jumbo- Visma, Ineos Grenadiers are adamant they will bounce back at the 2021 Tour, finds Peter Cossins

- Peter Cossins

Ineos-Grenadiers boss Dave Brailsford has pledged to rebuild his squad after they lost their spot as the most dominant team in the Tour de France peloton to Jumbo-Visma.

The first step on that is understood to be the signing of young hot-shot and recent Baby Giro winner Tom Pidcock. A raft of other riders are reported to be on Brailsford's shopping list.

Over the course of the last three weeks, Jumbo-Visma have dismantled the British team’s dominant status. They did so by employing and improving on the method that was the foundation of those seven Tour victories, steamrollering their rivals in the mountains with an unmatchable show of group strength.

Then defending champion Egan Bernal was forced out of the race with injury.

In the aftermath of that unexpected setback, questions that had been asked of the British team coming into the Tour resurfaced. Had they got their selection right? Should 2018 champion Geraint Thomas have been part of the line-up? And how much did they miss their late directeur sportif Nicolas Portal, who oversaw six of those seven wins?

Speaking in the wake of Bernal’s withdrawal from the race due to debilitating injuries to his back and, as a knock-on, to his knee, Brailsford was adamant that he and his management staff had made the right decisions on rider selection.

“They were big decisions. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. I’m sure that people have a lot to say, but they’re not privy to the facts that I’ve got,” he said.