The deal is done, and after months of negotiations and points at which talks appeared to have broken down several times, Ineos Grenadiers finally have their marquee signing with the arrival of Tour de France contender Oscar Onley on a long-term deal.
The Scottish rider, who stunned the world with a splendid fourth place overall in Paris this summer, has switched from the colours of Picnic PostNL to Dave Brailsford’s Ineos Grenadiers with dreams of making the podium, potentially landing the team’s first Tour title since 2019 and ending their long drought without victory in cycling’s most prestigious race.
Whether Onley is the rider who can end Tadej Pogačar’s ruthless run of victories in the Tour remains to be seen. It’s imperative to acknowledge that the gulf between the four-time winning Slovenian and Onley stretched to over 12 minutes this summer.
Still, at the very least, Brailsford now has a rider around whom he can build a squad. He and Ineos Grenadiers, after several years in the GC (General Classification) wilderness at the Tour, and following Geraint Thomas’ retirement, have their leader. They have a narrative.
Daniel Benson is a pro-cycling veteran, having covered 14 editions of the Tour de France as editor-in-chief of Cyclingnews and Velo, and now runs his own Substack newsletter.
- Read more: 'The gap to Pogačar is huge, but time’s on his side’ – analysing this Brit's breakout Tour de France
Onley's potential
On Tuesday, Thomas, who has slipped into the role of Director of Racing at Ineos Grenadiers, pinpointed Onley’s talent and potential.
“Oscar’s performance in 2025 has been incredible really. I rode my first Tour when I was 21, so to see what he achieved at this year’s Tour at just 22 was really impressive. The way he rides and understands a race is mature beyond his years – he’s a proper racer. I can’t wait to work with him – at his age there’s still loads of headroom,” Thomas said in a team press release.
“Our whole team has worked really hard over the winter to re-focus and re-set our ambition, changing our structures and processes to help us deliver against our goals. Oscar fits naturally with this project – and I’m confident the new system we’re building will help him achieve his absolute best.
The strongest teams I ever rode with had multiple, talented GC riders, and that’s what I feel we have now – super strong options for any stage of the race. Oscar complements our rider roster perfectly, and it feels like we’re really on our way now,” the 2018 Tour winner added.
Could Onley be the new Wiggins?
I draw comparisons between the Onley signing and the one Brailsford made 16 years ago when Bradley Wiggins shocked the cycling fraternity by finishing fourth in the 2009 Tour de France.
That year, Brailsford was busy finalising his inaugural Team Sky squad for 2010 and, at one point, Vincenzo Nibali was set to be the team’s leader. However, when Wiggins secured fourth place that year, swift decisions were made with Wiggins essentially bought out of his contract with Team Garmin-Slipstream.
However, the plan didn’t quite work out at first. Wiggins struggled in his debut Tour for the British team, and in 2011, when he returned as a favourite, he hit the tarmac and crashed out with a broken clavicle on stage seven.
It looked as though the transfer that had been designed to propel the team towards a first British winner of the men’s Tour de France was beginning to unravel, but success was finally achieved during that halcyon summer of 2012, when Wiggins won the Tour ahead of teammate Chris Froome; Mark Cavendish won three stages in the rainbow jersey; and then Wiggins cemented his place in British history even further with an Olympic gold in the time trial in London.
Of course, Wiggins and Onley aren’t the same athletes, and the peloton is a very different place these days. Wiggins had the track pedigree that Onley lacks, while the Scottish rider has shown greater early promise on the road than Wiggins.
In hindsight, when Wiggins won the Tour in 2012, the peloton was going through a transition, moving ever further away from the Lance Armstrong era, but by 2012, Alberto Contador and Cadel Evans were tailing off at the Tour, and with no heir apparent, Wiggins and Team Sky filled that vacuum for almost a decade.
Fast forward to the modern era, and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight when it comes to Pogačar’s relentless domination at the Tour de France.
A fifth win in 2026 feels like little more than a formality, while his team, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, has what looks like a ready-made successor in Isaac del Toro, who was second in this year’s Giro d’Italia, and at 22 has already won an astonishing 21 races. Onley, who is 23, has won just two.
And there are genuine question marks over whether the well-respected and grounded young Scot can replicate his Tour de France performance right away. Granted, he was on a smaller and less well-funded team this year, but you could throw a blanket over almost a dozen riders with genuine claims to be worthy of a position between 3rd and 10th at next year’s Tour de France.
Onley might close a portion of those 12 minutes he conceded this summer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll vault towards second or third overall.
Defining success
Onley is far from a certainty, then, but he remains a rider with massive potential – one who showed that even though the gap between the yellow jersey and fourth was immense, it could decrease over the next couple of seasons.
What’s more, he will walk into Ineos Grenadiers as the undisputed leader when it comes to the Tour de France squad, even with the recent arrival of Kévin Vauquelin, who finished a valiant seventh in this year’s race.
Onley is also a massive upgrade on Carlos Rodríguez, who has never found that next level despite flashes of brilliance earlier in his career, and Egan Bernal, who, since his horrific training crash a few years ago, has not refound the form that made him a world beater.
The key barometer for success over the next 12 to 24 months depends on expectations. Onley, from everything we’ve seen so far, isn’t a threat to Pogačar at this point, so a repeat of fourth at the Tour, and a few wins scattered throughout 2026, should be deemed a success, especially if you judge results in comparison to Wiggins during his debut season with the team.
A cemented podium challenge in 2027 after his first season on the team would be another step forward for Onley, but after that, it’s impossible to make any legitimate predictions.
All we know for sure is that the British team has their homegrown British leader, and that, for the next couple of years at least, provides both a narrative and a focal point for a team that’s been searching for a purpose.
