Day of destiny

Thomas can touch the heights as glory beckons in crucial mountain stage

He is getting closer. 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 feared 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 today’s 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. That would give an estimated time loss of 59 seconds for Thomas in tomorrow’s TT. 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.”

Very sensible. With a total altitude gain of nearly 5000metres, and some of the biggest, baddest climbs in the Pyrenees to negotiate, 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 is not is because the finish is 20km after the Aubisque, down in the valley, rather than on the summit of the mountain itself. And because Alpe d’huez featured this year. Nevertheless, there is plenty which could go wrong for Thomas today.

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 Wim van Est – the first Dutchman to wear the yellow jersey – slipped on a descent and fell into a ravine in the 1951 Tour. He was dragged out by his team manager

‘Having Froomey at my disposal is just amazing’

thanks to a rope made of racing tyres but, by the time they got him back up, the tyres had all stretched and would not 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.”

Thomas, who has been known to crash in the past, will be extremely wary on today’s descents. Assuming he stays upright, Thomas could hit the wall himself in terms of fatigue, although that seems unlikely given the way he rode on Wednesday, when he clearly had the best legs.

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. After cracking on the Col du Portet on Wednesday, dropping from second to third on GC, Team Sky’s four-time cham-

pion promised he would ride for Thomas today.

Thomas said he hoped he would not have to use him too much, with Froome very much still in contention for the podium or even the overall win if disaster does befall Thomas.

“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.”

That Thomas, who began this race as Team Sky’s Plan B, is able to call on the world’s most expensive

domestique today is testament to the way he has ridden at this race, and to the respect Froome has for him.

This race is not over yet. But get through today’s stage in one piece – in the vicinity of his rivals – and they can start painting Cardiff city centre, his birthplace, yellow.

“I guess expecting the worst, hoping for the best,” Thomas concluded when asked to sum up what he anticipated from this day of destiny.

“We’re expecting a lot of attacks straight from the gun, in the break, maybe on the Tourmalet halfway through, certainly on the last climb.

“Obviously it’s the last mountain stage and I think guys will try to take every opportunity they can. But I think in the back of their minds they’ve still got to have the TT.

“It will be a big test,” Thomas admitted. “I think it’s more one for the team to control most of the day. Obviously the last climb will be down to the legs. We just have to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”