Even without former team rider Caleb Ewan's three stage victories in his race debut, Mitchelton-Scott's four wins at the 106th Tour de France marks the Australian team's best results to date since it debuted in 2012. In fact, Mitchelton-Scott had only amassed three stage victories over the previous seven years combined.
Reigning two-time South African road race champion and Tour Down Under winner Daryl Impey jump-started the team's success with an impressive Stage 9 win after both he and runner-up Tiesj Benoot (Lotto Soudal) escaped the breakaway on the final climb to Brioude.
Despite tweeting in all caps "I am looking forward to seeing you today Paris1" in reference to concluding the final day of the gruelling three-week, 21-stage Grand Tour following consecutive weather-shortened stages, Impey was extremely upbeat regarding his team's performance.
"Before we started, I said winning a stage was a dream of mine and now to say I achieved my dream in this year's Tour is still something that hasn't quite sunken in yet," he stated in the team's official press release containing rider reactions.
"The team hasn't missed a beat this whole Tour, we have taken every opportunity out of it and with great success. We have had a few years without any victories at the Tour so to come away with four is quite unheard of these days. It has been great to be a part of such a successful team."
Mitchelton-Scott had abandoned its sprint goals prior to last year's Tour, which resulted in Ewan not making his Tour debut until this year after he ultimately made the switch to Lotto Soudal in 2019. The team pinned its hopes on 26-year-old British rider Adam Yates, who had won the youth classification in 2016 and was the second-best young rider at the Giro d'Italia the following year.
However, it was his twin brother Simon Yates who stole the spotlight winning two stages - 12 and 15 - while Adam Yates conceded heavy time losses on the individual time trial on Stage 13 before ultimately falling out of general classification contention - finishing 29th overall more than one hour adrift of firt time race winner Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) of Colombia.
Matteo Trentin gave the squad its victory with a Stage 17 win in Gap.
“A win is a win and it’s been our most successful Tour – four stages at the Tour de France is very impressive," said team director Matt White.
“The way we’re going about it has been pleasing as well, from breakaways. Of the six breakaways we were in, we took four stage wins and another one was cancelled so it’s not too bad of a strike rate.
“Obviously the number one objective when we came in was to support Adam on the general classification," White continued. "We already had two stage wins when we had to change our tack, but not only did we change tack, we changed tack very successfully and bagged another two wins as well.
“It’s pretty gratifying. Every year, everyone works just as hard. Some years you have good luck and others bad luck. We’ve been on the tail of some bad luck the last couple of years, but this year we’ve had some good luck, but you make your own luck at the same time.”
