Froome and Thomas show how face

Presence of two British Tour de France winners is a massive coup for the event, writes Tom Cary It is certain the GC battle is going to be shaped by events on stages five and six in Cumbria

When the Tour of Britain relaunched in its modern guise back in 2004 the idea of a British rider, riding for a British team, taking to the start line of this country’s national tour fresh from a dominant victory at the Tour de France was about as far-fetched as Donald Trump occupying the White House. How times have changed.

While there have been plenty of reasons to question British cycling – and Team Sky in particular – in recent years, it is a clear measure of the growing strength of the sport in this country that the start list to this year’s OVO Energy Tour of Britain contains not one but two British Tour winners in Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome.

The inclusion of both is a massive coup for organisers Sweetspot. Tour wins may be becoming old hat these days – British (Sky) riders have won six of the last seven editions of

La Grande Boucle – but actually getting those winners to turn up at this race has proved devilishly difficult. Thomas will, in fact, be the first Briton to compete at his home race as the reigning Tour champion.

When Sir Bradley Wiggins became the first British winner of the maillot jaune in 2012, he competed at the London Olympics straight afterwards and skipped his national tour.

Froome, meanwhile, managed to swerve Britain following each of his four Tour wins, preferring to hunt instead for that elusive Vuelta a Espana title, an itch he finally managed to scratch this time 12 months ago.

This will be Froome’s first time racing at the Tour of Britain since 2009.

His presence, though, and Thomas’s, will bring thousands of extra fans flocking to roadsides from Carmarthenshire to Cumbria, from Newport to Nuneaton. And get millions more watching this race on television.

The only downside, from a British perspective, is the fact that Sky’s two Tour winners are unlikely to be challenging for the green jersey.

“I’m just pretty nailed now,” was how Thomas described himself in an interview with The Daily Telegraph this week, adding that he would “try to do a job” for Dutch team-mate Wout Poels instead.

Thomas may be bluffing, of course. He may have better form than he realises. He was, after all, in the form of his life just four weeks ago. Alternatively, the Welshman – a man who has been known to enjoy a beer or three on a night out – may know exactly how many units of alcohol he consumed in the aftermath of his Tour win, how many nights’ sleep he has missed, how many kilos he has gained ... and he may reasonably have concluded that he stands a snowball’s chance in hell of keeping up with the bright young things that pack this year’s peloton.

Froome, Thomas added in the same interview, was in much the same boat as he was. His wife Michelle has just given birth to their second child (so he, too, has been suffering from sleepless nights, albeit for different reasons) while his body is completely shot from doing the Giro d’italia and Tour back to back.

Both are such strong stage racers that they can probably bluff it to a degree. But the depth of domestic talent is not the only thing which has improved since the Tour of Britain relaunched in 2004. The depth of talent in general is now extremely high.

This year’s field includes not only the riders who finished first and third at the Tour de France, but also the rider who finished fourth, Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic, and the rider who won the mountains classification in Julian Alaphilippe. Both are believed to be targeting this month’s Road World Championships and are therefore likely to be in decent shape heading into this race.

Which of them the route suits better is open to debate. The Tour of Britain is always a notoriously difficult race to call. Six-rider teams make it hard for any one team to control the bunch, the roads are heavy, and the race’s position on the calendar – after the Tour, overlapping with the Vuelta, and a few weeks before the World Championships – means riders are often building up their form or desperately clinging on to it. And that is before you get on to the great British weather.

But looking at this year’s route, it is possible to discern a few things. First, it is noticeable how many stages this week pack a sting in the tail. Stages one, two and three all have climbs positioned towards the finale which will keep the outcome up in the air until the end.

All three may come back together, allowing the fast men to reign in the first half of the week (and there are a lot of fast men ... Mark Cavendish and Marcel Kittel have pulled out injured, but there is still a top field of sprinters this week with Fernando Gaviria (Quick-step Floors), Andre Greipel (Lotto-soudal) and Caleb Ewan (Mitchelton-scott) leading the charge).

Alternatively, one of the GC favourites could escape on one of the early stages and carve out a useful lead. The early parcours would appear to have Alaphilippe’s name all over it.

Whatever happens in the first half of the race, what is certain is that this year’s GC battle is going to be shaped by events on stages five and six in Cumbria.

The uphill team time trial on Thursday, which finishes atop Whinlatter Pass, is only 14km long but that is more than enough to lose the race if your team split (the time is taken from the fourth rider). While the stage the following day, ending with a