Geraint: i’ll be a bully boy
Starts Friday
CYCLING
Tour de France
MIKE WALTERS
GERAINT THOMAS has won the Tour de France, ridden 2,000 miles with a fractured pelvis and headbutted a telegraph pole at 30mph on a hairpin descent.
He has crashed so many times he wears gravel rash like polka dot fashion accessories and he was christened Thomas the Flank Engine when he became a trusted first lieutenant to four-times Yellow Jersey winner Chris Froome.
On cycling’s ultimate test of endurance, there are few things Thomas has not seen or experienced on French roads – and he may have one last surprise left in the tank.
When 176 riders set out from that well-known French town, Copenhagen, on the 2,081-mile long haul to Paris on Friday, the 2018 champion admits Slovenian flying machine Tadej Pogacar, winner of the last two editions, will be the man to beat again.
And if Pogacar comes unstuck, fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic is likely to be right in the mix.
But at 36, Thomas – now the elder statesman in a powerful Ineos Grenadiers line-up – insists Pogacar is not unbeatable if they can bully him
with “strength and numbers”. Thomas said: “I think having a strong team to take them on is our best chance of beating them.
“Man against man it would be super tough, but if we can use our strength and numbers, that is the best way we can win the race.”
The crosswinds of two flat stages in Denmark and chaos on the cobbles in northern France could determine whether Thomas, Daniel Martinez or Adam Yates will become Ineos standard-bearer in the mountains.
But Sir Bradley Wiggins, Britain’s first winner of Le Tour in 2012 and now a Eurosport pundit, believes Thomas is in “podium contention” and said his surprise return to form has been “amazing.”
He said: “Within the sport, he doesn’t maybe carry that fear factor like Pogacar or Roglic. But he’s very underrated.
“You didn’t expect much of him this season and suddenly he pops up two weeks before the Tour and wins the Tour de Suisse.
“It’s amazing. I can’t underrate him because I’ve seen the man’s quality since he was a junior and I’ve always been his biggest fan.”