UCI WorldTeam

INEOS Grenadiers

Ineos Grenadiers, or Team Sky as some of us still erroneously call them, are the brainchild of David Brailsford, the man who masterminded Great Britain’s track cycling success at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Brailsford set out with the idea that he could transfer his marginal gains approach from the track onto the road, declaring the lofty goal of winning the Tour de France with a British rider within five years.

Two years after Brailsford created the team in 2010 they achieved their goal and won the 2012 Tour with Bradley Wiggins. Since then they’ve won the Tour six more times with Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and, most recently, Egan Bernal.

They’ve rebranded since they last won La Grande Boucle, now bearing the brand name of British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe’s petrochemicals company. This rebrand has brought with it accusations of greenwashing, as well as - from a racing perspective - a change at the heart of the team. Additionally, with Ratcliffe purchasing a large stake in Manchester United and putting Brailsford in a high-level position in the football club, questions about the funding and management of Ineos have been raised. Nonetheless, for now, Ineos Grenadiers rolls on as one of the most well-funded teams in cycling.

From a team that was once fully focused on the Tour, Ineos Grenadiers have now transformed themselves into a team with far-reaching goals that stretch throughout the season. They remain focused on discovering the sport’s next major talents, though, and have brought in a handful of youngsters for 2024 who they hope will develop into gems in the coming years, most notably the highly-touted American Andrew “AJ” August.

These new recruits will not only get the honour of learning the WorldTour ropes from some of Ineos' dependable veterans, like Thomas, Michał Kwiatkowski, and Luke Rowe, but also from their current crop of superstars, like Bernal, Tom Pidcock, Filippo Ganna and Josh Tarling.

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