The Times - UK (2020-09-15)

56 2GM Tuesday September 15 2020 | the times

SportTour de France

5

At their hotel in the Isère, the Ineos

Grenadiers riders and support staff

would have found it a long second rest

day. For the previous five years, Sir

Dave Brailsford’s riders had come to

this point in the Tour knowing that the

race was theirs to win. Now they were

out of contention. In only 14 months,

the greatest team in the sport had

become the Tour’s most notable under-

achievers.

Speaking to staff members,

Brailsford, the team principal, talked of

needing to understand why it had gone

so wrong. There will be meetings and

reviews and they will come to accept

things they sensed in the first week. The

team weren’t even close to where they

needed to be. Egan Bernal’s calvary on

the climb to Grand Colombier might

have been the moment the challenge

died but for days the team effort had

been on life support.

Perhaps the first thing Brailsford

needs to do is hold up his hands. Ineos

were not well prepared for this Tour.

They now know this. Their riders had

neither the energy nor anything like

the form of their biggest rivals,

Jumbo-Visma. From 2012 to 2018, no

team came close to Team Sky.

That changed at last year’s Tour.

With a smaller budget, Jumbo-Visma

were stronger than Ineos, though this

wasn’t properly understood as Bernal

rode well in the final week to win an

exciting race. Great victories often hide

as much as they reveal.

Jumbo knew the tide was turning

their way. All they needed was a leader,

and at last season’s Vuelta they found

one in Primoz Roglic. No matter how

in-form Ineos were at this Tour, they

would have had a battle on their hands.

Perhaps an unwinnable one.

Alas, Ineos haven’t been good. Bernal

has been well below his best and so, too,

most of his team-mates. For this, Brails-

ford must accept responsibility. Had he

listened to Wout van Aert’s interview

after winning the fifth stage into Privas,

the Ineos boss would have been both

enlightened and worried. By that point,

Jumbo were dominating — bossing the

peloton in the rain of the opening stage,

then deciding who went in breakaways

and how much of a lead they were

allowed in the days that followed.

At Privas, someone asked Van Aert

how his team were so strong. “The most

important thing was how we handled

lockdown,” he said. “Our directeur

week-long Tirreno-Adriatico stage

race that ended yesterday has been a

solid effort, and he would have been

stronger in France than Dylan van

Baarle or Jonathan Castroviejo, but the

overall effect would have been

negligible. You can argue, too, that they

were unlucky with the crashes that seri-

ously diminished Pavel Sivakov and

Andrey Amador’s contribution to the

team effort. And it is true that Bernal

has struggled with his back, an injury

that needs rest, not more racing. But the

thing is, with the exception of Michal

Kwiatkowski, not one Ineos rider has

performed to the level expected of him.

They rode like a tired team.

Brailsford also needs to reconsider

his response to the tragic loss of the

directeur sportif Nico Portal, who died

of a heart attack in March, aged 40.

The directeur sportif, or team

manager, drives the team car in the

convoy that follows the riders during

races and issues instructions to them

via radio earpieces. They are responsi-

ble for devising tactical plans, passing

on information about the route and

liaising with officials.

Portal was charming, bright and una-

fraid of challenging his boss. He had his

ideas on race strategy and believed he

understood road racing better than

Brailsford. Rod Ellingworth, now the

team principal at Bahrain-Merida,

played the Henry Kissinger role during

the many Portal/Brailsford disagree-

ments.

Instead of appointing a direct

replacement for Portal, Brailsford said

he would draw from a pool of directeur

sportifs and rotate them. So, who

exactly is Ineos’s directeur sportif?

Gabriel Rasch for the Tour, someone

different for the race after that and

another change for the race beyond

that. Brailsford may not agree but the

team need a strong directeur sportif.

When Jumbo turned up at last year’s

Tour with four mechanics, six

soigneurs [carers], two chefs, a doctor,

an osteopath, three media personnel

and three coaches, it was clear that the

playing field had levelled. Rivals who

for years had been gunning for Ineos

were now properly armed.

Van Aert is perhaps the most talented

rider around, accomplished on every

terrain. Last year Ineos offered him the

sun, moon and stars to change teams.

He preferred to stay at Jumbo. What we

have seen at this Tour hasn’t been an

overnight wonder but something that’s

been coming for two years.

6 David Walsh is Chief Sports Writer of

the Sunday Times.

Overall leading positions 1, P Roglic (Slovenia, Team

Jumbo-Visma) at 65hr 37min 7sec; 2, T Pogacar

(Slovenia, UAE Team Emirates) at 40sec behind; 3, R

Uran (Col, EF Pro Cycling) at 1min 34sec behind; 4, M

Angel Lopez (Col, Astana Pro Team) at 1min 45sec

behind; 5, A Yates (GB, Mitchelton-Scott) at 2min 3sec

behind; 6, R Porte (Aus, Trek-Segafredo) at 2min 13sec

behind; 7, M Landa (Sp, Bahrain-McLaren) at 2min

16sec behind; 8, E Mas (Sp, Movistar Team) at 3min

15sec behind; 9, N Quintana (Col, Team Arkea-Samsic)

at 5min 8 sec behind; 10, T Dumoulin (Neth, Team

Jumbo-Visma) at 5min 12sec behind. Others 13, E

Bernal (Col, Ineos Grenadiers) at 8min 25sec behind;

16, R Carapaz (Ec, Ineos Grenadiers) at 32min 55sec

behind. Green jersey S Bennett (Ire, Deceuninck-

Quick-Step) 269pts. Polka-dot jersey B Cosnefroy (Fr,

Bernal, the defending Tour champion, lost more than seven minutes to his main rivals on Sunday’s climb to Grand Colombier AG2R La Mondiale) 36pts. White jersey T Pogacar.

sportif told us we must do very little

during the first few months, so that we

would be fresh when we resumed

serious training. We started back on

June 1 and we were ready at the begin-

ning of August.”

The thinking behind Jumbo’s strate-

gy was that the riders had undergone

intense pre-season training in the three

months from December to February

and the last thing they needed was to

treat the period from March to May

as a second pre-season. Ineos did

things differently, giving the riders

a short break at the beginning of

lockdown and then maintaining a

heavy workload from the mid-

dle of April to the return to

racing last month.

It is how they have always

done it. The endless training

camps at altitude, the punish-

ing nature of the perform-

ance director Tim Kerrison’s

interval “efforts” and the

deep-rooted belief that the

team worked harder and more

intelligently than their rivals.

Inside the team they talked

about how encouraged they were

by the data, failing to appreciate the

psychological toll of so much training

and so little racing.

Ineos were OK at the first race back

— La Route d’Occitanie — but were

dominated by Jumbo at their second

and third prep races, the Tour de l’Ain

and the Critérium du Dauphiné.

Brailsford knew he had a significant

problem. His team were not as strong as

Jumbo. Needing to change things, he

omitted Chris Froome and Geraint

Thomas from his Tour team.

Masters of hindsight now tell

you this was a mistake. The

team, they say, needed

the wisdom, experience

and team spirit that

Thomas would have

brought. Perhaps, but

only if you believe

the positioning of

the deck chairs on

the Titanic was

important. Thomas

was off the pace at the

Dauphiné and Froo-

me miles behind him.

Neither would have

significantly improved

the team’s perform-

ance. Thomas’s

second place at the

Brailsford has questions to

answer about his strategy

Brailsford needs No 2 to take him on

David Walsh

Stage 16

0km 164km

La Tour-du-Pin to Villard-de-Lans

Côte 2000 164km

Côte de

Virieu

562m

Lanobre

648m

Côte de Revel

752m

Col de Porte

1,326m

Montée

de Saint-

Nizier-du-

Moucherotte

1,169m

Grenoble

La tour-du-Pin

Villard-de-Lans

4

S

Côte de

Virieu

Col de Porte

Montée de Saint-

Nizier-du-

Moucherotte

Côte de Revel

Saint-Joseph-

de-Riviere

2

2

1

10km

S

1

2

2

4

ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT

Mercedes have defended Lewis

Hamilton’s right to wear the

slogan-bearing T-shirt in which he

stood on the podium at the Tuscan

Grand Prix on Sunday, insisting that

the aim of the driver’s message is to

highlight human-rights issues rather

than make a political statement.

The FIA, motorsport’s governing

body, is looking into whether the world

champion broke any rules by wearing a

T-shirt at Mugello that called for the

arrest of the police officers who killed

Breonna Taylor, a black woman who

was shot eight times in her own home in

Kentucky in March.

six-wicket win with 2.1 overs to spare. It

consolidated their position in second

place, moving them three points clear

of Leicestershire Foxes in third.

Zak Crawley, the England Test

batsman, smashed his maiden T20

Blast hundred from 48 balls as Kent

Spitfires thrashed Hampshire by eight

wickets at the Ageas Bowl to briefly

move top of the South group. He hit 14

fours and two sixes in an unbeaten 108

as the visiting side secured the victory

with almost three overs remaining.

Kent were soon leapfrogged by Sur-

rey on net run rate, however, after their

30-run win over Middlesex at Lord’s.

Yorkshire pull four players

out of match in Covid alert

Vitality T20 Blast

Angus Oliver

Mercedes defend Hamilton’s T-shirt

During a protest before the race and

on the top step of the podium after his

victory, Hamilton, 35, wore a T-shirt

that said, on the front: “Arrest the cops

who killed Breonna Taylor.” On the

back, alongside a photograph of Taylor,

were the words: “Say her name.”

Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team

principal, has previously indicated that

the team will back Hamilton’s vocal

support for the Black Lives Matter

movement and, in response to a social

media message suggesting he should

keep politics out of sport, Mercedes

responded: “We’re not bringing politics

into F1, these are human-rights issues

that we are trying to highlight and raise

awareness of. There’s a big difference.”

The FIA said yesterday that Hamil-

ton’s latest stance was “under active

consideration” to determine whether

any rules may have been infringed.

Earlier this season, Lando Norris

opted not to wear a helmet featuring

the Flemish flag for the Belgian Grand

Prix, to commemorate his family’s links

with Belgium. McLaren team officials

realised the symbol is used by a

nationalist movement in Flanders,

running the risk of his helmet being

construed as a political statement.

The FIA has also rejected calls from

Hamilton and other drivers to review

its rules for safety-car restarts after a

pile-up ruled four cars out of Sunday’s

race. Michael Masi, the race director,

instead blamed the drivers for failing to

heed warnings.

Formula One

John Westerby

Yorkshire Vikings pulled four players

out of last night’s match against

Lancashire Lightning at Headingley

due to concerns over coronavirus.

David Willey, Tom Kohler-Cadmore,

Matthew Fisher and Josh Poysden were

withdrawn while the club awaited

results of Covid tests that will “deter-

mine future availability”.

Lancashire took the points in their

North group clash, with Dane Vilas, the

captain, and Rob Jones sharing in an

undefeated stand of 71 to complete a