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It was, as Netcompany-Ineos said themselves on X after the stage, a valiant effort. Having been away all day in various groups, Josh Tarling, the 22-year-old Welshman who went so close to winning an Olympic medal in Paris in 2024, attacked under the flamme rouge, with one kilometre remaining of stage 17 of the Tour de France from Chambéry to Voiron.
Alas, his efforts were in vain. Tarling was caught within a few hundred metres, acting thereafter as a glorified lead-out for the sprint teams.
In the end, it was Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) who took his first victory of this year’s race ahead of Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) and Olav Kooij (Decathlon-CMA CGM), with Tarling and Netcompany-Ineos left empty-handed.
Unless they can reverse their fortunes in Thursday’s 18th stage from Voiron to the ski station of Orcières-Merlette, the British team risk drawing a blank at the Tour for the second time in three years.
They have suffered their share of bad luck in 2026.
Oscar Onley, the young Scot who finished fourth overall in last year’s race when he was riding for Picnic-PostNL, and was signed by Netcompany-Ineos to be their general classification leader, suffered a significant shoulder injury in a crash on stage six of last month’s Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Onley’s injury meant the team had to pivot from overall goals to stage-hunting in this year’s Tour. It has not gone well.
A decent effort in the opening-day team time trial – second to Visma-Lease a Bike – was tinged with frustration as another of their general classification riders, Frenchman Kévin Vauquelin, suffered a rear-wheel puncture losing valuable time. Punctures have, in fact, plagued Netcompany-Ineos’s entire Tour, with Egan Bernal, Filippo Ganna, and Thymen Arensman all having flats after getting into breakaways.
But at some point you have to accept that they have not had a good Tour. Arensman’s failure to make the start ramp of Tuesday’s time trial in Évian-les-Bains on time, losing about 15 seconds as he lost concentration, summed their race up.
It has been a steep learning curve for Geraint Thomas, the team’s new director of racing, who was appointed last November after retiring as a rider.
The ever-popular Welshman – who won this race in 2018 – was his usual approachable, cheerful self at the start in Chambéry on Wednesday, speaking to media, signing autographs. And he absolutely deserves time to find his feet in the role. The squad are at the start of their new partnership with Netcompany, a Danish IT firm that was announced in a landmark five-year, €100m (£87m) co-title partnership in the spring.
But it does feel like the team have been “in transition” for about six years now. Sir Dave Brailsford has been and gone and come back, although he no longer speaks to the media, staying largely out of sight on the team bus.
Thomas, 40, insisted his relationship with Brailsford was strong at least, and that he was learning a lot.
“Hundred per cent,” he told Telegraph Sport. “I spend so much time with Dave now. And I’m learning a lot. Having spent so much time with him anyway over the years, we have a similar sort of way of looking at things when it comes to, you know, planning and the preparation and all that.
“But even from a, you know, a DS (directeur sportif, or sporting director) group, it’s a young group, and they’re all growing as well. So I think the team has a lot of potential. But potential is nothing unless you really act on it and do something about it. So that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Thomas pointed out there was no way of knowing that Onley was going to be injured, and they were going to have to bring Bernal and Arensman here, having already ridden the Giro d’Italia, as their main climbers. Asked how he thought Onley would have fared, Thomas shrugged, saying: “That’s the million-dollar question”.
But the Welshman did say there was no silver bullet. “It’s not like one main thing that’s going to turn it around,” he said. “It’s a whole heap of things, in every sort of area, really.”
One silver bullet could be to sign Tadej Pogacar? The Slovenian could probably win the Tour riding on his own, Telegraph Sport suggests. “Ha,” Thomas replied. “But that costs a lot of money and then getting him to leave [UAE Team Emirates-XRG] and he’s obviously got a contract and everything.”
Paul Seixas might be a more achievable signing and by all accounts Netcompany-Ineos are prepared to pay substantial money for the hottest young thing in cycling. But they are hardly alone in that. And in any case Decathlon-CMA CGM, Seixas’s team, are fighting hard to keep a rider who carries the hopes of a nation on his young shoulders, with even president Emmanuel Macron being said to be keen to keep him in French hands. Netcompany-Ineos’s sponsorship deal with French energy giant TotalEnergies could be their best hope of snaring him.
Without a general classification leader to rival Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), or even the next rung of Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), it is difficult to imagine Netcompany-Ineos making significant leaps forward.
Thomas at least is a shrewd appointment, and it was interesting wandering around all the team buses on Wednesday noting all the British talent out there who came up through Team Sky. Luke Rowe (with whom Thomas hosts a podcast) at Decathlon-CMA CGM, Peter Kennaugh at XDS Astana, Rod Ellingworth at Bahrain Victorious, even Mark Cavendish is at the race with organisers ASO. Perhaps Thomas can get the band back together?
“Luke’s got a good role at Decathlon, but it’d be great to, you know, be on the same team as him again,” Thomas admitted, adding that Ben Swift, who is in his final season, was another potential management recruit. “Obviously, in this new sort of chapter that we’re all in now. And when you look around, Pete at Astana, and, you know, Swifty about to stop riding. It’s strange. I feel old just saying that.”
Thomas, who is moving from Monaco back to Cardiff in September, when his son Macs begins “in Welsh school”, has his work cut out. A win between now and Sunday would help restore some of the feelgood factor, but Thomas insists he will not be running for the hills either way.
“As a rider, I never was never one to quit and stop a race,” he said. “You don’t have a bad result and just go home and you feel sorry for yourself, you get up and you go after it again.
“This has absolutely whetted my appetite, you know? Because it hurts when you’re used to being successful. You want a piece of that again.”
