The History of the INEOS Grenadiers

2010

2010 saw Sky Pro Cycling launched with an ambitious and ground-breaking goal for the sport – to win the Tour de France within five years with a clean British rider. An exciting roster of talent was formed, as the team set about taking on the WorldTour, translating the success of British Cycling on the track to the road.

The team won its first ever bike race as the year kicked off in Adelaide, with Greg Henderson sprinting to victory in the Cancer Council Helpline Classic. A week later the team had also picked up their first UCI stage victory, as Chris Sutton won the final stage of Tour Down Under.

It was a year of firsts, with Juan Antonio Flecha winning the team’s first-ever cobbled Classic at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, while Bradley Wiggins took victory, and the pink jersey, in the team’s debut Grand Tour stage at the Giro d’Italia.

2011

Further milestones would follow as the team began to get more comfortable at the top of the sport. Edvald Boasson Hagen won the team’s first Tour de France stage, sprinting to victory on stage six in Lisieux. The Norwegian doubled up on stage 17 from the breakaway as the team rode in a green Sky Rainforest Rescue kit.

Later in the year, the team made new strides in the Grand Tour GC fight as Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins both stood on the podium at the Vuelta a Espana, in a result which would eventually see Froome crowned the race’s overall winner.

2012

A magical year of sport saw the team claim its first Tour de France victory as Bradley Wiggins won the yellow jersey in Paris. That summer saw the Brit win Olympic gold and complete his rise to super stardom. Chris Froome finished second and displayed the talent that would see him go on to make the yellow jersey his own. All in all the team won an incredible six stages at the Tour in 2012, with world champion Mark Cavendish winning three, including victory on the famous Champs-Elysees. The team racked up 50 victories as cycling’s popularity in the UK skyrocketed.

2013 - 2014

Chris Froome’s era well and truly begun as he claimed overall victories in Oman, Criterium International, Romandie and Dauphine before heading into the 2013 Tour. With three stage wins he dominated the race en route to a maiden Tour de France victory. Bradley Wiggins won the Tour of Britain at the end of 2013 and would go on to win the World Time Trial championship a year later in 2014. The 2014 Tour de France started in Yorkshire, with incredible scenes of fans lining the route. Unfortunately Froome’s race wouldn’t last long following a crash and subsequent broken wrist on stage four. Nevertheless the opening days of the race on UK roads would leave a lasting legacy.

2015 – 2017

A true cycling dynasty was solidified as Chris Froome racked up an incredible three Tour de France wins in a row between 2015 and 2017. The team reached new levels both in stage races and one-day events. 2016 saw the team finally capture a first Monument Classic, as Wout Poels took victory in an epic edition of Liege-Bastogne-Liege. A year later Michal Kwiatkowski followed that up by winning Milan-Sanremo in one of the greatest finishes of all time – a three-way bike throw photo finish. With the team and Froome operating at an incredible high level in Grand Tours, 2017 ended with Froome taking a second Vuelta a Espana title.

2018 

Chris Froome and the team continued to write their names further into the history books, this time with one of the most memorable Grand Tour wins of all time. Battling back from major time-loss, Froome went all in on stage 19 as the team devised an audacious fuelling strategy to propel the Brit into the pink jersey. The rest is history as Froome claimed victory in Rome, ensuring he and the team held all three Grand Tour jerseys simultaneously. After years of riding in loyal service, 2018 would prove to  be a career year for Geraint Thomas as he won the Tour de France in epic fashion. With a statement stage win atop Alpe d’Huez on the road to Paris, Thomas proved to be a wildly popular winner of the yellow jersey, and was joined on the podium by Froome in third.

2019 

A new era for the team on and off the bike, in May 2019 Team Sky became Team INEOS as Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS became sole owners of Tour Racing Limited. Success came in the team’s first race in new colours, as Chris Lawless claimed overall victory at the Tour De Yorkshire. That momentum would extend into the Tour de France, where the team secured a sensational Tour de France victory with Egan Bernal. Yellow in Paris was the team’s fifth in a row, with three different riders.

2020-2021

The 11th and 12th Grand Tour wins for the team came in the form of back to back Giro d’Italia victories. The 2020 edition proved to be one of the most memorable three-week races in recent memory, with the team rebounding from the early exit of leader Geraint Thomas. Re-branded as the INEOS Grenadiers earlier that year, the team went on to win an astonishing seven stages, with Tao Geoghegan Hart claiming pink on a thrilling final day in Milan.

During this time Filippo Ganna rose to the mantle of the best time trial rider in the world, claiming two rainbow jerseys in 2020 and 2021, as well as five Giro stages. Egan Bernal won an emotional Giro in 2021, taking two stage wins along the way. 2021 also saw the signing of Tom Pidcock, who not only won De Brabantse Pijl in his debut season, but also made the team’s first forays into off-road racing. The team’s athletes excelled at the delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, with Pidcock winning Mountain Bike gold, while Richard Carapaz and Ganna took golds in the road race and team pursuit respectively.

2022-2023

Tom Pidcock pulled a Superman pose over the finish line to win the cyclo-cross world title in 2022, and a year later he would add to his collection of rainbow jerseys with the world title on the mountain bike. A long-awaited Monument was finally ticked off after years of trying in 2022, with Dylan van Baarle riding a perfect race to win Paris-Roubaix solo. It proved to be an emotional moment for the entire team. Pidcock was also responsible for one of the moments of the 2022 Tour de France, taking victory atop Alpe d’Huez following a long-range attack. As much as his climbing, it was his incredible display of descending which really captured the imagination. Victory at Strade Bianche in 2023 again showed just what the Yorkshireman can do on a bike.

In the winter of 2022 the Grenadiers signed their first female rider – one of the greatest athletes of all time – in Pauline Ferrand-Prevot. The French star would do the MTB double at the worlds in Scotland, claiming her 11th and 12th world titles by winning the short track and XCO respectively. Young talent continued to flourish in the team, with Carlos Rodriguez winning a superb Tour de France stage in 2023, the same year Josh Tarling broke through to win the European Time Trial championship.