Cautious Thomas set for last uphill challenge with Froome’s help
HE is getting so close now he can almost touch it. One more good day in the mountains today and victory in this Tour de France will surely belong to Geraint Thomas.
The Welsh rider said last night that he was “expecting the worst but hoping for the best” as he prepared for what could be the defining day in his career.
Four huge cols, including the Tourmalet and the Aubisque, stand between Thomas and the possibility of becoming only the third British winner of cycling’s biggest race. Holding a 1min 59sec lead over his nearest rival, Sunweb’s Tom Dumoulin, heading into the 19th stage, Thomas reckons that if he can reach the finish in Laruns with even half that buffer, he should have enough in the tank to complete the job in tomorrow’s 31km time trial.
Dumoulin is the world time trial champion and has taken an average of 1.89sec per kilometre out of Thomas in time trials dating back to 2015. The Welsh rider, though, is more bullish than that.
“In the [2017] Giro d’Italia I had a big crash and only lost 40 seconds to Dumoulin in the [40km] TT,” he reasoned. “So I guess it would be at least half that. We’ll see. But like I say, I’m not going to think about that just yet.”
With a total altitude gain of nearly 5000m, there is an argument to be made that today’s stage from Lourdes to Laruns is the race’s queen stage.
The only reason it isn’t is because the finish is 20km after the Aubisque, down in the valley, rather than on the summit, and because Alpe d’Huez featured on the rota this year. Things can still go wrong very quickly.
If he needs any reminder of that fact he needs only look at the monument erected at the summit of the Aubisque commemorating the moment when Dutch rider Wim van Est slipped on a descent and fell into a ravine in the 1951 Tour.
He was dragged out with a rope made of racing tyres but, by the time they got him back up, the tyres had all stretched and wouldn’t stay on his wheels.
The plaque reads: “Here on 17 July 1951 the cyclist Wim van Est fell 70 metres. He survived but lost the yellow jersey.”
Or he could be the victim of an ambush, although again that seems unlikely given the Team Sky arsenal at his disposal, which now includes domestique de luxe Chris Froome, of course.
“Hopefully we won’t have to use Froomey,” Thomas said after coming home safely in the bunch in yesterday’s sprint stage, which was won by France’s Arnaud Demare.
“Hopefully we’ll have strength in numbers and he can just follow as well. But obviously having Froomey at my disposal, so to speak, is phenomenal.” (© Daily Telegraph, London)
Tour de France
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