I HAVE BEEN WRITING ABOUT professional road cycling for 23 years, watching for another decade more. In that time I’ve seen an awful lot, good and bad, but I can’t remember a team ever winning all three Grand Tours in one season, let alone with three different riders.
That’s because it’s never been done before.
Until the final week of the 78th edition of La Vuelta a España, it was set to become the most unremarkable (read: boring) of the Grand Tour triumvirate for Season 2023.
Jumbo-Visma was proving to be the stage race team of the year. Their methods clinical, their riders uncompromisingly loyal in prosecuting management’s orders, their raison d'être: to win as a team. Ineos Grenadiers was once that team, particularly when it was known as Team Sky,
