GERAINT NO STOPPING HIM NOW!
Thomas increases his lead to climb towards greatness
HE climbed every mountain like Julie Andrews in the Sound Of Music and when the going got steep in the Pyrenees, Geraint Thomas played a peaky blinder.
As Thomas rode to the verge of greatness here, platoons of Welsh emissaries were scrambling for the Channel ports to greet him on the Champs Elysees with Land Of My Fathers tomorrow evening.
On G-day in the Tour de France, Thomas came second behind ex-ski jumper Primoz Roglic on a queen stage featuring some of the most daunting peaks known to men in Lycra, extending his overall lead to 2min 5sec ahead of nearest rival Tom Dumoulin.
If he stays upright and rides today’s 19.2-mile time trial purposefully, Thomas will become Team Sky’s sixth Yellow Jersey winner in seven years.
That should annoy the French, especially as it is now 33 years without a home winner on Le Tour and the meter is still running. If Thomas, who has led the race for 850 miles since he stormed into yellow in the Alps, finishes the job, it will be one of the greatest sporting achievements in Welsh history.
On the sixth anniversary of the London 2012 opening ceremony, Thomas said he had not felt such a sense of anticipation since the night before his second Olympic time trial gold six years ago.
He said: “It’s a bit like the night before the Olympic Final in
2012, with all the tension of what’s to come tomorrow, but
I can take confidence from the way I’ve been riding.
“Nothing is ever guaranteed in this sport, especially with me, and what will be, will be. But this was a big day, I needed to get it ticked off, and at least there’s no pressure on me to take too many risks in the time trial.”
In a gruelling five-and-a-halfhour shift in the saddle, which included the feared Tourmalet and Aubisque slopes, for once Team Sky’s powerhouse train disintegrated and Thomas had to tackle part of the final climb with no domestiques to help.
Heroics from Colombian Egan Bernal, 21, (below) rescued struggling four-time champ Chris Froome and gave Thomas some company on the home stretch after 125 miles of torture from Lourdes to Laruns. Thomas coolly followed Dumoulin’s wheel and said: “It was squeaky bum time, but all I had to do was follow Tom.
“Now I just have to treat it as any other race and not think too much about the end-game.” Inevitably, should Thomas enjoy the view from the top of the podium in Paris, the 1st Battalion Dirt Diggers will start looking for evidence that his tour de force was powered by something shifty. In fact, the digging has already started.
Thomas was asked if he could reassure the cynics who trash cycling as a dopers’ convention, and he replied: “I don’t know what to say. I do it the right way, the team do it the right way and we train super-hard.
“There’s nothing I can say to prove it, but it will stand the test of time. The team is just phenomenally strong – it’s not just about having good legs but good heads. I know I work super-hard and I’ve had some bad luck, but it’s nice to know it is paying off now.”
French snipers will take some comfort that their public enemy No.1 in the peloton is not going to win, as if it vindicates the appalling hostility he has endured at the roadside, but the last word belongs to Froome.
Champions get carried out on their shield, and the honesty with which Froome (now fourth) deferred his leadership to
Thomas has been as exemplary as his dignity in the face of placards, punches, spitting and smoke bombs.