Some prefer to go to Jumbo for less money and not stay at INEOS.

The former cyclist Ian Boswell, during the great era of Team Sky, in an interview on The Cycling Podcast, did not mince his words regarding the downward trend that INEOS Grenadiers team has been suffering and the lack of a clear project that has made it stop being the great reference it was in the past decade.

Ian Boswell speaks clearly about the crisis of INEOS Grenadiers

No one overlooks that INEOS Grenadiers, despite its tremendous economic power, is no longer that super team of yesteryear and has stopped being the reference in the grand tours since the Tour de France won by Egan Bernal in 2019, saving the great role of Geraint Thomas in the Giro d'Italia 2023, just a glimmer of light in the downward line that the team has been carrying.

Years in which they have been losing some of their best cyclists such as Adam Yates, Tao Geoghegan or Richard Carapaz and others, like Egan Bernal, who has not been the same after the serious fall suffered at the beginning of 2022.

Boswell cited Rod Ellinworth, general manager of the squad until just a few weeks ago, as the main responsible for the successes of the Team Sky era, when it became public his departure from the team in company of sports director Roger Hammond and deputy director Matteo Tosatto leaving INEOS Grenadiers practically headless.

A departure that, according to Ian Boswell, is due to the disregard suffered by Ellinworth who was not counted on for certain signings or his disagreement with decisions that were imposed on him from above.

For Boswell, INEOS Grenadiers currently suffers from a significant lack of leadership and identity, clinging to the idea of being a reference team in the grand tours but without having a cyclist who can overshadow Vingegaard or Pogacar and without having alternatives for other types of cycling such as stage hunting or facing the classics with guarantees.

A deficit in management that has made big signings have been conspicuous by their absence throughout the fall with the only addition so far of Óscar Rodríguez and the young American promise Andrew August.

Ian Boswell ended by commenting that a couple of his runner friends last year chose to sign for Jumbo-Visma instead of INEOS Grenadiers for much less money than what the British team offered them after knowing what the atmosphere and dynamics were like within it and prioritizing better sporting possibilities offered by the Dutch team.