Many fans remember the Team Sky ‘mountain train’. For some it may be hazy memories of Sergio Henao grinding away in the high Pyrenees, a line of black jerseys behind him, or for others it may be Riche Porte’s pulls at the front of a group in the Alps, leader in tow.
It was a simple enough tactic, where a train of superdomestiques would whittle down the peloton, setting up their leader – be it Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas, or Egan Bernal – for victory. The method, although frustrating to some viewers, worked for a number of years, bringing seven Tour de France wins between 2012 and 2019.
But then it stopped working. Race organisers, in an attempt to make racing more interesting, introduced more punchy stages and fewer time trial kilometres to favour aggressive riders. Other teams started investing as much money as Ineos, spending more on ‘marginal gains’, their squad depth and their equipment. Soon races, and particularly Grand Tours, could be won in different ways to the ‘mountain train’ tactic.
Indications that the mountain trains were no longer working, started to come in 2018 when the Team Sky’s own leader, Chris Froome won the 2018 Giro d’Italia with an audacious 80km attack on stage 19, winning by three minutes on the stage in a move that was unlike anything he had previously shown in his four Tour victories. Suddenly, the spell was broken. Aggressive racing was in fashion.
Even more so when puncheur, Julian Alaphilippe almost won the Tour in 2019 thanks to an aggressive style. By no means a pure climber, Alaphilippe battled through the Pyrenees and Alps to finish fifth after wearing the yellow jersey for 14 days. Ineos Grenadiers’ Egan Bernal won that Tour but acted almost as a watershed moment – it was the last time Ineos won the Tour but also it opened the flood gates to aggressive riders to dominate the race; Tadej Pogačar won his first yellow jersey in 2020.
Pogačar’s UAE team and Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma adapted to the 2020s style of racing by adopting more attacking and unpredictable tactics. The two best Grand Tour riders race by trying to gain time rather than to not lose time. Attacking to gain time – by sending domestiques up the road or by setting a hard pace for their leader to launch an attack –is the way stage races have been won so far this decade but Ineos have not kept up with this style. Until now.
Ineos Grenadiers’ Filippo Ganna held onto an impressive second place at Tirreno-Adriatico while teammate Thymen Arensman worked his way up to third at Paris-Nice. The last time the team finished on the podium at both races was in 2013 when Richie Porte won Paris-Nice and Chris Froome was second at Tirreno-Adriatico, before it was even called Team Sky but rather Sky Procycling.
The performances and results at Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico are in stark contrast to Ineos’ disappointing 2024, when the team had to wait until April to get its first WorldTour victory and only achieved six in total. This year, the team already has three and it is not only the results that indicate that the team has turned a corner but its style of racing has changed too.
Attacking style yields results at Paris-Nice
Ineos attacked all week at Paris-Nice, best exemplified by Magnus Sheffield’s 12.5km solo win on the last day into Nice. It was the 22-year-old American’s first road victory since winning De Brabantse Pijl in 2022, and came after a difficult intervening period. Sheffield came off his bike on the same corner where Swiss rider Gino Mäder tragically died after a crash in the Tour de Suisse in 2023, suffering physically and mentally after the incident. His win on the last day of Paris-Nice – his first at WorldTour level – was the result of months of hard work to regain the promise he had always shown.
That final day attack also meant Sheffield finished fourth overall behind his teammate Arensman in third, showing that aggressive racing can also bring about strong GC results. This new racing style was seen throughout the team. Tobias Foss, the 2022 time trial world champion, was on the attack a lot at Paris-Nice and although it didn’t result in a stage win, he was rewarded with ninth on GC, meaning Ineos had three riders in the top 10.
Foss won the combativity award after attacking on the stage to La Loge des Gardes and on the next day where he joined teammate and early-attacker Ben Swift, who won the combativity prize for the day. Foss was caught with 4km to the line before the brutal climb up La Côte-Saint-André. The day after, the team was again to the front of proceedings with six of the team finished in the top 13 after a long day in the wet and cold, which finished with Josh Tarling and Sam Watson sprinting to second and third places.
GC Ganna at Tirreno-Adriatico
Filippo Ganna’s second place on the overall at Tirreno-Adriatico was also full of attacking flair and some steely grit. The Italian was only 35 seconds behind overall winner, Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates XRG) after a number of challenging days, including a difficult summit finish. Ganna finished ahead of established stage racers like Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Mikel Landa (Soudal–Quick-Step).
Although, as predicted, Ganna won the opening individual time trial, it was his performances on the mountain stages – particularly the finish at the summit at Frontignano, a 7.6km HC climb at 7.9% with a maximum gradient of 12%. It came after a day of climbing with an elevation of 3,508m across the day and Ganna held firm, finishing with climbers Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious) and Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) 50 seconds behind stage winner Ayuso. Ganna’s climbing at Tirreno bodes well for the upcoming Milan-Sanremo on Saturday, where the team will be looking to continue their successful start to the European racing season.
Missing Pidcock?
A rival Ganna will have to worry about on the Via Roma finish on Saturday is Tom Pidcock of Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team. Pidcock left Ineos in the off-season and he told Rouleur he is relishing the freedom he gets at the new team. Ineos’s attacking style at Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico would have suited Pidcock. For the majority of his time at the Ineos, the team was racing in its old style – except for some notable exceptions, like Pidcock’s memorable win on Alpe d'Huez – but now the team are attacking more, will they miss what Pidcock has to offer? Perhaps, but if the team continues to race aggressively, they will win more races, as they have enough talent in their squad to do so.
The team has come through a personnel change as well as a change to their race tactics. Not many riders from the Team Sky mountain train days remain; there are only four survivors left from the 2019 Tour: Egan Bernal, Geraint Thomas, Jonathan Castroviejo and Michał Kwiatkowski. The bulk – and the best performers – of the squad are aggressive riders, like Sheffield and Ganna who have already won this season and riders like Foss and Arensman, who, if they can continue their current form and racing style, will doubtless join them with a road victory in 2025.
