Geraint Thomas: 'Jumbo-Visma have overtaken us, but I wouldn't say UAE Team Emirates have'

After poking understandable fun at the stir they caused last week with their trademark tongue in cheek comments, Geraint Thomas and Luke Rowe defended the progress of Ineos Grenadiers in this week's Watts Occurring podcast.

“We’ve been a team in transition for a number of reasons, but we’re definitely heading in the right direction now I feel," insisted Thomas, with both he and Rowe pointing to Astana Qazaqstan's acquisition of Mark Cavendish at the start of the year as a deal that may have benefitted Ineos Grenadiers.

Read more: Opinion: Astana Qazaqstan's faith in Mark Cavendish will pay off at the Tour de France

Ineos Grenadiers have gone from the 'hunted' to the 'hunter'

Since their inception in 2010, Team Sky and later Ineos Grenadiers, have been a team revolved around the big ambition of winning Grand Tours. It has brought them an enormous wave of success with multiple victories in all three of cycling's Grand Tours, but since Jim Ratcliffe's acquisition of the team in 2020, they have failed to come close to winning another Tour de France.

For Rowe and Thomas, the end of Ineos Grenadiers' time at the top has been as a result of both the natural end to a dynasty, as well as the changes that have occurred within the team over the last few years.

"Dave [Brailsford] has had his health issues and he’s changed his role, a few key people left like Fran Millar, Rod [Ellingworth] left for a year, Tim [Kerrison] needed a new challenge and he ended up leaving. It has been a big change when you look at it," admitted Thomas.

“We’ve been overtaken, clearly, we’re still there or thereabouts, but we’ve been overtaken by a team or two," Rowe acknowledged, "and now you turn into the hunter."

"It’s a dangerous position to be on top, and be the hunted... We did it for a long time, now we’ve changed from the hunted to the hunter, and we’re coming for them, aren’t we?"

Without a Grand Tour win since Egan Bernal at the Giro d'Italia in 2021, Thomas agrees with Rowe that the team have been overtaken as the best team in the world, but he will take umbrage with those who posit that Ineos Grenadiers have been left behind by both Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates.

“Jumbo have overtaken us, but I wouldn’t say UAE have. It’s just because they have Pogačar. If you take Pogačar out of it, they’ve got some super talented riders, don’t get me wrong," he insists, "but look at the Vuelta, [their race] didn’t stand out."