page_title: Ineos Grenadiers
section_title: 2017: The Grand Tour double and Milan-San Remo
hierarchical_section_title: Ineos Grenadiers / History / 2017: The Grand Tour double and Milan-San Remo
caption_attribution_description: Tour de France 2017 Stage 2 Düsseldorf
context_page_description: Ineos Grenadiers is a British professional cycling team that competes at the UCI WorldTeam level. The team is based at the National Cycling Centre in Manchester, England, with a logistics base in Deinze, Belgium. The team is managed by British Cycling's former performance director, Sir Dave Brailsford.
  The team launched in 2010 with the ambition of winning the Tour de France with a British rider within five years, a goal achieved within just three years when Bradley Wiggins won the 2012 Tour de France, becoming the first British winner in its history, while teammate and fellow Briton Chris Froome finished as the runner up and then went on to win the 2013 Tour de France, thereby achieving the team's primary aim twice over within the original five-year time period. Froome won Sky's third Tour de France title in 2015, fourth in 2016 and fifth in 2017. Froome also went on to win the 2017 Vuelta a España and the 2018 Giro d'Italia, making him the champion of all three Grand Tours at once. Froome was also retrospectively awarded victory in the 2011 Vuelta a España, after the original victor Juan José Cobo was stripped of his title due to an anti-doping violation.
context_section_description: Sky started the 2017 season with three stage wins at the Herald Sun Tour as well as winning the teams classification, with new team member Kenny Elissonde finishing on the podium in 3rd place and Chris Froome finishing sixth overall. The team's first race win of the season came at Strade Bianche when Michał Kwiatkowski took a solo victory after attacking 15 kilometers from the finish. Geraint Thomas took a stage win at Tirreno-Adriatico and held the leader's jersey for one day, also taking the overall victory and one stage win at the Tour of the Alps. Sky won Paris-Nice for the fifth time in sixth years courtesy of Sergio Henao, who won the race overall by just two seconds over Alberto Contador. Kwiatkowski added to Sky's win total by winning Milan-San Remo in a three-up sprint, giving the team its second Monument win. Neo-pro Jonathan Dibben won the individual time trial stage at the Tour of California, the team also winning the team classification with Tao Geoghegan Hart and Ian Boswell placing in the final top ten overall.
  Thomas and Mikel Landa were appointed the team's joint leaders for the Giro d'Italia. At one point in the race, Thomas was sitting second in the general classification, however on the 9th stage to Blockhaus a fair chunk of the peloton was involved in a crash involving a stopped motorbike, which took down Thomas, Landa and most of the other members of the team. Thomas attempted a comeback after placing second in the following day's time trial, but the extent of his injuries were as such that he abandoned the race prior to stage 11. Landa continued as sole leader, taking several top-3 finishes on several mountain stages before finally winning stage 19 to Piancavallo. He went on to win the mountains classification and the super-combativity prize, also winning the Cima Coppi for being the first to cross the summit of the Stelvio Pass on stage 16.  The team then participated in the inaugural Hammer Series, a three-day event pitting teams against each other in various skills competitions.  Impressive performances by Tao Geoghegan Hart in the climbing event and Elia Viviani in the sprint event gave the team enough points to take the overall lead.  In the team time trial-style Chase event, they held on by one second over Team Sunweb to win the entire competition. Froome returned to action at the Critérium du Dauphiné and finished fourth overall, just one second off the podium. Teammate Peter Kennaugh won the penultimate stage at Alpe d'Huez.
  The team then went into the Tour de France with yet another strong lineup and the goal to help Froome achieve his fourth overall victory. In the opening prologue stage in Düsseldorf the team placed four riders within the top eight led by Geraint Thomas, who became the first Welsh rider to wear the yellow jersey. He was followed by Vasil Kiryienka in third, Froome in 6th and Kwiatkowski in eighth – Froome putting between 35 seconds and nearly a minute into most of his general classification rivals. On stage five to La Planche des Belles Filles, Froome took third place behind stage winner Fabio Aru, moving him into yellow and Thomas to second place. The 1–2 placing on GC held until stage nine to Chambéry, when Thomas was involved in a crash on the descent of the Col de la Biche and had to abandon the race with a fractured collarbone. On stage 12 to Peyragudes, Froome cracked within the final kilometer, ceding 22 seconds and the yellow jersey to Aru. On the final approach on stage 14 to Rodez the team stretched out the peloton, splitting it into several groups due to crosswinds allowing Froome to put 25 seconds into Aru, enough to retake yellow by a margin of 18 seconds overall. On stage 15 to Le Puy-en-Velay, Froome ran into mechanical trouble on the ascent of the Col de Peyra Taillade and was distanced by more than 40 seconds thanks to a brutal acceleration by the AG2R La Mondiale team, but with the help of his teammates he managed to make it back to the main group of GC contenders to keep his overall lead intact.  Froome and Landa performed strongly in the Alpine stages
caption: Team Sky prior to stage 2 of the 2017 Tour de France as leaders of the team classification
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