Sean Kelly has said he found it very hard to see how Ineos Grenadiers was going to beat either Primož Roglič or Tadej Pogačar in a Grand Tour, adding a clear-out of riders was needed at the British World Tour team.
The Irish former great also believed Ineos Grenadiers was
making basic mistakes in how it was managing Egan Bernal and Richard Carapaz.
Kelly added Ineos Grenadiers had signed numerous riders on very big contracts
who were simply no longer performing the way they were once able.
Kelly was speaking to stickybottle as Primož Roglič wrapped up this third win in La Vuelta, and the Ineos Grenadiers challenge again fell away in a Grand Tour riding against either of the Slovenians.
He said the Giro win for Bernal this year, though
impressive, could not disguise the fact Ineos Grenadiers was falling short and
needed big changes in several areas despite spending more money on riders than
any other team.
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Asked if Ineos Grenadiers was going to be capable of
beating Slovenians Roglič and Pogačar in any Grand Tour in coming seasons,
Kelly doubted it.
“I think it’s going to be difficult, even with a really
good Bernal,” he said. “(Ineos Grenadiers) have to look at Bernal and the way
he’s preparing. And, of course, his back problem is still lingering and that
could be an ongoing issue.
“But if he didn’t have that back problem, I still think that going back to Colombia after doing the Tour or the Giro… you have to keep these guys in Europe and do the training camps at altitude. I think the team is giving them too much leeway to go back home during the season. As a team boss, I wouldn’t allow that. I’d tell them they have to stay in Europe during the season.”
He added while Colombian Bernal and Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz were going back home and were training at altitude there, they were both huge stars in their home countries. The pressure on them to meet people and go to engagements while home was immense, and that had to be having a big impact on their training and recovery.
Ineos Grenadiers, Kelly said, was losing control of their
star riders for chunks of the season when they went home and he could not
understand why that was allowed.
“I remember even in my day, and it (pressure from the
media and public) was a fraction back then compared to what it is like for the
big guys now… When I won the Vuelta, for example, you had civic receptions and
other events back home. The time it all takes; it really upsets your routine
and you don’t get the recovery you need after those big races.
“You just get totally taken out of your routine and it’s
not good for those riders. You are in demand when you get home, and you pay for
that. And that’s what happened to Carapaz on this Vuelta, he paid for going
home after the Olympics.”
Kelly said the approach to training, recovery and nutrition was so dialed in the peloton now that when riders took time out of their routine, they were handing their rivals perhaps a bigger advantage than at any time in the history of the sport.
“You just can’t take your foot off the pedal at all now.
The minute you do it you are handing away maybe five per cent at your top end.
But your rivals are still at 100 per cent. So you’re way off and you can’t
compete when you start racing again.
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“And then you start to struggle when you’re not in the
places in races that you should be. That weighs on these guys mentally and
pretty soon you’re not at the races at all to win.”
The first place the team should start and, Kelly
believed, they would start was by ensuring their South American riders stayed
in Europe for the full season.
“I think by doing that with Bernal, you may be able to get him back to his best, but he has to be monitored. And still, against Pogačar and Roglič, it’s going to be very difficult to beat them. When they come up against those guys in the three week tours, it’s going to take a really good Bernal, a really good team around him and even then it would be a big battle.”
Kelly said because the Slovenians were so good at Grand
Tours, it was much harder now to win a Grand Tour - that Pogačar and Roglič
were riding – than it was even just two years ago.
“We thought Bernal was going to win the next three or
four Tours and we were asking ourselves who was going to touch him,” Kelly
said.
He also believed even though Bernal had won the Giro this
year, he has never regained the same condition he was in when he won the Tour
in 2019, partly due to the back problem but also because Bernal and many in his
team were underperforming.
“At the Giro this
year, you just have to look at who he was riding against, who he was beating,”
Kelly said of Bernal winning the Giro even though, he believed, the Colombian
has never regained his 2019 condition.
“I take nothing from the guys who were on the podium at
the Giro (Bernal winning from Damiano Caruso and Simon Yates)… these are very
good riders. But they are not the top, top Grand Tour GC riders in the pro
peloton right now.”
Kelly also believed some of the talent Ineos Grenadiers
had brought into the team in recent years needed stricter guidance, were no
longer producing their best performances or were not consistent enough across a
three-week race.
“(Adam) Yates is
very good for a week-long race but in the three week tours, I don’t think he’s
going to be on the podium soon. (Andrey) Amador… OK, he’s a domestique but I
think he was getting close to his sell-by date when they took him on. And he
hasn’t been performing as well with Ineos at all; not like he was in the good
years with Movistar.
“They’re buying up riders, giving them big contracts, but
they are not quite producing the type of performances they were producing
before they made the move over to Ineos. There will have to be a clear-out
there,” Kelly added, saying the departure of Geraint Thomas could be the first
part of that process.
No matter what changes they made, Kelly found it hard to
see how Ineos Grenadiers could beat Pogačar and Roglič in any Grand Tour.
However, while Pogačar was the best Grand Tour rider in the world, Kelly still
believed Roglič had a chance of beating him.
“I’d have really difficulty saying ‘Roglič will not beat
Pogačar’,” Kelly said. He added the way Roglič had prepared this year for the
Grand Tours, with less racing, seemed to work for him. Roglič had not weakened
at all in the third week of the Vuelta, for example.
“If Roglič had gotten through the Tour without his (crash), he is the one who would have pushed Pogačar a lot. He missed a lot of racing before the Tour and I think, because of that, in the final week he could have been really good, as we have seen in this Vuelta. So that training method, not racing for a long time; it looks like that works for him based on what we saw at this Vuelta.”
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