Oscar Onley feels the power of INEOS in the Algarve: "This is why I wanted to join this team"
Oscar Onley was close to his first win in the colors of INEOS Grenadiers on Sunday. In the final stage of the Volta ao Algarve, he narrowly lost to Juan Ayuso. Afterwards, he was mainly pleased with the way his team rode.
"I knew the finish straight was pretty narrow and that passing there would be tough, so I tried to launch the sprint early," Onley explained his tactic to our camera. "I felt Ayuso next to me. Fuck...," the 23-year-old rider lamented. "Sorry, he was just stronger."
Although he just missed out on the stage win, Onley is happy with his performance in the Algarve. In his first race for INEOS Grenadiers, he finished fourth overall. "I'm also very pleased with how the team rode today. We were very active. Kevin made a really good move," he referred to Kevin Vauquelin, who launched an attack in the final preliminary phase.
"This is exactly why I wanted to join this team. To play like this, in races like these. Maybe we don’t have the absolute strongest rider, but with our depth of strength, we can get things done."
Race rhythm
As for himself, Onley sees room for improvement. "But normally I get better by racing more. Hopefully, I’ll be a bit stronger again at Paris-Nice in a few weeks. After Paris-Nice, I’m usually targeting the Catalonia Tour, but March is always a tough part of the season."
"If you look at our team this week, we have to go into all these races with high expectations. The overall classification might not fully reflect what we’ve done this week. If you look at what Thymen and Kevin did in the time trial and what I did today, we can be happy."
