Team Ineos Tour de France line-up revealed with Thomas and Bernal joint leaders
The British team have announced their squad for the Tour, specifying Thomas and Bernal will share leadership duties
Ineos have confirmed Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal will be joint leaders of the team at the upcoming Tour de France.
The rest of the eight-man squad will be made up by Luke Rowe, Michał Kwiatkowski, Wout Poels, Gianni Moscon, Jonathan Castroviejo and Dylan van Baarle.
>>> Thomas or Bernal? Which rider should Team Ineos back for Tour de France glory?
Thomas will head to the Tour as defending champion despite crashing out of the recent Tour de Suisse.
After the Welshman abandoned on stage four after a fall, Bernal took over leadership duties and won the race, beating Rohan Dennis (Bahrain-Merida) by 19 seconds.
After securing the victory, Bernal said he would help the 33-year-old defend his title "If Geraint Thomas is better than me", with that decision now looking to have been formalised by team management.
"Things changed when he crashed," Bernal said in the post-race interview. "He was our leader when we came here but he crashed and could not continue so I became leader.
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"It is one of the biggest races I have won so I’m really happy, it gives me a lot of confidence for the races that are coming up," he continued.
"I’m happy because just before this race I had a big crash so to come here and win is really nice for me and the team."
Bernal was forced to miss out on what would have been his debugGiro d’Italia this year after breaking his collarbone in a training ride preparing for the race.
Geraint Thomas has said he’ll need some big training rides to prepare for the Tour de France after he crashed out of the Tour de Suisse.
Thomas's crash encapsulated an unlucky period for Ineos, with Chris Froome also being involved in a horrific crash that ruled him out of contesting a record-equalling fifth Tour de France title this July. He was placed in intensive care following a crash at the Critérium du Dauphiné, and is still not well enough to return home.
In other Ineos news, Fran Millar has been announced as the new CEO of the British outfit.
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Hi. I'm Cycling Weekly's Weekend Editor. I like writing offbeat features and eating too much bread when working out on the road at bike races.
Before joining Cycling Weekly I worked at The Tab and I've also written for Vice, Time Out, and worked freelance for The Telegraph (I know, but I needed the money at the time so let me live).
I also worked for ITV Cycling between 2011-2018 on their Tour de France and Vuelta a España coverage. Sometimes I'd be helping the producers make the programme and other times I'd be getting the lunches. Just in case you were wondering - Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen had the same ham sandwich every day, it was great.
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