Ineos Grenadiers deputy team boss Rod Ellingworth said the British team is ready to create a women’s road racing team in the next few years.
Founded in 2010 as Team Sky and commanding one of the biggest budgets in the sport, the Grenadiers have long faced questions about potential investments in a women’s team – something that rival teams like Trek-Segafredo, Jumbo-Visma and Movistar are having considerable trouble with have done successfully.
In 2021, the team’s former chief executive Fran Millar said the idea was discussed back in 2012 but was rejected at board level by Sky, which backed the team until it acquired Sir Jim Racliffe’s Ineos in 2019.
The Grenadiers added French mountain bike world champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot to their off-road roster last year, making her their first female rider, but Ellingworth has now said they are open to further expansion into women’s racing.
“We’re definitely looking ahead,” said Ellingworth. “Obviously we brought Pauline in late last year, purposely getting Pauline to support her with her Olympic mountain bike campaign.
“She had a brilliant start last week (French Cup win in Gueret) in the World Cup shirt and she’s been a fantastic addition to the team so we’re moving in the right direction.”
Ferrand-Prevot, 31, was world road champion in 2014 and has spoken of returning to the discipline after next summer’s Paris Olympics.
When asked if she could do that in an Ineos shirt, Ellingworth added: “Why not? I’ve always said you have to follow the dreams and ambitions of the drivers. You grab a driver with really big ambitions and see where he wants to go.
“You then decide as a team whether you start this journey or not? If Pauline had ambitions to ride the Tour de France or whatever in the future, what a great story that would be.”
Rod Ellingworth said the signing of multi-discipline champion Tom Pidcock helped fuel the team’s expansion (Jasper Jacobs/PA).
Ineos expanded into off-road racing when they signed Tom Pidcock, Olympic men’s mountain bike champion and former world cyclocross champion, to start the 2021 season, and Ellingworth said further expansion could follow.
The story goes on
“There’s no real barrier,” he said. “It’s just about the focus, the focus of the team and the direction we want to go.
“What we decided a while back was to expand and that was with the mountain bike team with Tom and his ambitions in different disciplines within the sport, then we brought Pauline into it.
“I think we’re showing that we want to spread our wings and do some other things. I think for all of us it’s about not just doing the same things year after year. We are an ambitious team with ambitious goals and we want to keep moving forward. I think we’re going in the right direction.”
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