Geraint thinks he has time to be a success in the Giro

GERAINT Thomas believes his strong time trialling pedigree can give him the upper hand over his rivals at this year’s Giro d’italia.

With three time trials in this year’s race covering a total distance of 65km, the 2018 Tour de France champion is confident of building on his promising recent form and adding the Giro d’italia to his palmarès.

After finishing second to Giro rival Simon Yates in last month’s eight-stage Tirreno-adriatico race, Thomas followed it up with a highly creditable fourth place finish in last week’s World Time Trial Championships in Italy.

Speaking to S4C’S Seiclo series, who will be showing this year’s Giro d’italia, Thomas said: “It feels like I’m coming into a good bit of form, so I’m really looking forward to just getting stuck into the Giro now. The World Time Trial and the Tirreno-adriatico went well and that finished with a TT, so hopefully I can continue that.

“The Giro course is challenging as always, there’s some tough mountains in the final week and weather could play a big part in that. There’s three time trials totalling about 65km, and compared to the other GC guys, the time trial is definitely one of my strengths so I’ll try and ride as fast as I can and hope that I can gain some time on them.

“The thing with this race is that in the last week, in the high mountains and coming to the end of October, you could have completely different weather conditions, so there could be a lot more challenges than say, a Tour de France in July.”

Thomas leads the Ineos Grenadiers team at the Corsa Rosa for the first time since 2017, when he was forced to withdraw after a crash with a parked motorcycle.

“That’s what’s been getting me out of bed over the last six weeks,” he added, “knowing that it went wrong a few years ago, so hopefully I can make amends for 2017.

“I went into it in good shape and targeting my first grand tour win, only for a crash to end that. I dislocated my shoulder and banged my knee up, so I had to withdraw from the race, so it feels a bit like unfinished business. I’m certainly in decent enough shape.”

■ S4C will be showing live free-to-air coverage of each stage of the 2020 Giro d’italia, as well as highlights every night, on television and on demand at S4C Clic and iplayer. Coverage of stage one begins at 1pm today.