“I just didn’t want my time to be wasted” – Luke Rowe, a loyal INEOS employee, explains how structural difficulties behind the scenes impacted his decision to leave the company
As one of those riders who has become synonymous with his team, the news came as a surprise to many that long-time INEOS Grenadiers star and long-time road captain Luke Rowe would be taking on the role of Sporting Director with the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team following his retirement. However, the Welshman has now revealed his decision to move on despite the option to stay at INEOS.
“I never thought I would actually leave the team,” Rowe explained in an interview with GCN. “I thought I would spend most of my post-cycling career there, that it would be the natural thing, and then when that accident happened in March it was clear that was the end of my career. You take a step back.” and you say, “What should I do?” The first team I spoke to was INEOS and they kind of laid it out, “Okay, thank you very much,” and then I started to talk to other teams. I just feel like sometimes change is good.
While Rowe ultimately opted for the aforementioned move to the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale team, he admitted the option to continue as part of the new INEOS Grenadiers backroom team was on the table. “One of my biggest concerns about staying at INEOS was that I wanted to make a difference,” he explains, having previously described the team as “underperforming”. “If it’s here now, I want it to get better. Whatever department I was in, you want to improve. Honestly, the biggest reason I was afraid was that if I wanted to make a change, it would have to involve too many people. “The change ultimately doesn’t happen.”
The potential red tape and red tape involved in making key decisions at INEOS ultimately made Rowe feel that relocation was the more attractive option. “I just didn’t want my time to be wasted and that was my biggest fear. It wasn’t financial, it wasn’t a negative attitude towards an individual or the team as a whole. I have a lot of time for them.” I was afraid that I would get lost in a big organization. It’s also more than a cycling team now, it’s part of a global company and is owned by INEOS and not sponsored by them,” he reveals.
“At Team Sky, Dave Brailsford was always at the helm. Maybe a few people ran things, but the responsibility remained with him. Now there are more and more layers above that,” concludes Rowe. “Certainly the right people can make decisions where things could change overnight. If something big needs to be changed, it goes to the top dog and with the snap of a finger it’s done. For me, I would be way down the pecking order and it would have to go up through the chain of command.
