Geraint Thomas called it "tough going." His first Tour de France as director of racing for Netcompany Ineos produced zero stage wins, a depleted leader, and a front-row seat as Tadej Pogacar and UAE Emirates tightened their grip on the sport's biggest race.

Thomas, the 2018 Tour winner, took over from Dave Brailsford as the team's frontman and stepped into the team car for the first time at a Grand Tour. The optimism was real: a new co-sponsor in Netcompany, a rising team leader in Oscar Onley, and an opening team time trial in Montjuic, Barcelona, they genuinely believed they could win. They came close. They did not take the yellow jersey — the race leader's symbol — and things slid from there.

The blow that defined the Tour landed in June. Onley, the 23-year-old Scot who finished fourth overall at the 2025 Tour, was ruled out by injury. Without him, Thomas had to improvise. Egan Bernal, the 2019 Tour winner, was brought into the squad to shore up climbing depth. French signing Kevin Vauquelin, whose summer breakthrough had caught the eye the year before, could not reproduce that form. After stage six, French President Emmanuel Macron sought out Vauquelin for a word — a measure of the attention, if not the results.

Meanwhile, the deal that might have changed everything never happened. Remco Evenepoel, the Olympic road race and time-trial champion, confirmed that a move to Brailsford's setup "was close to being done." Ineos opted for Onley instead. Evenepoel went to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and rode to second place overall — his best Tour finish. It is the kind of fork in the road that will be debated for years.

At the front of the race, Pogacar was untouchable. The Slovenian claimed his fifth Tour title, with his UAE Emirates squad also topping the team classification — the cumulative standings across all riders. The 2026 route served up a double-header of summit finishes on Alpe d'Huez, the legendary 21-hairpin climb, and still no one could dislodge him. Jonas Vingegaard, the Dane who has pushed Pogacar hardest in recent years, was, in Thomas's view, the only rider who genuinely believed he could beat him.

For context, this is a steep fall for a British-registered team that once owned the Tour. Chris Froome led Team Sky to overall victory roughly a decade ago and is now retired. A decade back, British riders — spearheaded by Mark Cavendish — took seven stage wins in a single Tour. Thomas himself stood atop the podium in Paris in 2018. The Ineos Grenadiers, as they were then known, were the benchmark.

Thomas admitted there had been "a lot of learning on the job" in his first Tour managing riders rather than riding among them (The Guardian). The team failed to win a stage across the three weeks, according to a post-race review published the day after the Tour concluded (Cyclingnews).

For Onley, the next target is likely the Vuelta a España — the three-week Tour of Spain starting in late August. For Thomas, the in-tray is fuller: rebuilding a team that lost its leader before the race started, watching the rider it did not sign finish second, and facing the reality that Pogacar's dominance leaves very little room for anyone else.