Geraint Thomas could smell it now

After 19 stages, two riders stood out as the strongest: Yellow Jersey Geraint Thomas (SKY) and Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo).

Roglic, 28, is from Slovenia. He is a more than average climber and an exceptional time-triallist. He started late in cycling, in fact, he was a ski jumper and was the 2007 Junior World Ski Jumper champion. Five years later, he felt that ski jumping was too hard and he crossed over to cycling. His improvement on the bicycle was fast that a year later, a professional team signed him up.

Last night, his descending skills was put on the limelight. The last 20km of stage 19 was all downhill he dropped his rivals including Chris Froome (SKY) and Tom Dumoulin. He also moved from 4th to 3rd, relegating Froome to 4th. The way Roglic took the corners made my body tense and moved with him, willing him not to go down. It was breathtaking. In the end, Roglic not only gained a time, but also won the stage. And as far as I’m concerned, he’ll be my favorite for the 2019 Tour.

While Thomas lost time to Roglic, he gained time on Dumoulin, the defending World Time Trial Champion. It was a strategic loss, 19sec, but it was not his obligation to chase but to Dumoulin. Besides, Thomas has a 2.24min buffer against Roglic going into the stage 20 ITT and I think that this would be more than enough to win it all.

It is Dumoulin who is worried now that Roglic is just 19sec from taking over 2nd place. While Dumoulin and Froome are slowing down, Roglic is moving up and I believe that Roglic, who is fresher than the Dutchman, will beat Dumoulin in the TT and move up to a runner up position. Remember that Dumoulin and Froome raced lights out in the Vuelta last May and now they are paying for it.

I believe team LottoNLJumbo would be ruing the stage 3 team time trial where they lost 1.11min to SKY. If they had a stronger team, Roglic could probably be in a position to seriously challenge Thomas for the yellow jersey for the time trial tomorrow. But then, its not over until the fat lady sings and Thomas has been known to be someone who finds himself in unfortunate situations, like Richie Porte (BMC).

Again, Egan Bernal was simply incredible! Without him, Froome could have lost more time as it was the 21yo Colombian who paced him back to the leaders after the defending championed faltered. Froome tweeted Bernal so say, “massive thanks.”

Finally, I think that there will be a shake up in the top three after the ITT.